Biden doubles extreme weather funding amid warnings of severe hurricane season

President Joe Biden has announced he will double funding to address extreme weather ahead of concerns the United States will experience a severe hurricane season this year.

This decision came as Mr Biden visited the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Monday so he could be briefed on hurricane preparedness for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season.

“My administration is going to bring every resource to bear, every resource to bear, every time to help American people, Americans, weather emergencies,” Mr Biden said. “And we’re going to spare no expense, no effort to keep Americans safe and respond to crises when they arise, and they certainly will. Now is the time to get ready for the busiest time of the year for disasters in America. Hurricane season in the south and east, and the fire season out west.”

“Today’s briefing is a critical reminder, we don’t have a moment to lose in preparing for 2021,” he added.

Ahead of the meeting, the Biden administration announced its plans for how the federal government will address and prepare for extreme weather.

The administration has directed $1bn in funding “for communities, states, and Tribal governments into pre-disaster mitigation resources to prepare for extreme weather events and other disasters,” the White House announced in a press release on Monday.

In 2020, the United States experienced an unprecedented hurricane season with 30 named storms in the Atlantic Basin, the White House said. Communities across the country also experienced losses of more than $1bn due to climate-related disasters.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed on 20 May in its 2021 Atlantic hurricane season outlook that another above-normal hurricane season was expected this year.

In the report, forecasters predicted a 60 per cent chance of an above-normal season and a 30 per cent chance of a near-normal season. There was only a 10 per cent chance of a below normal-season, the forecasters said.

Additionally, it was anticipated that there could be 13 to 20 named storms during hurricane season, with six to 10 of them likely to become hurricanes. This has caused concern of how the storms could impact the communities hit by these storms.

“Now is the time for communities along the coastline as well as inland to get prepared for the dangers that hurricanes can bring,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “The experts at NOAA are poised to deliver life-saving early warnings and forecasts to communities, which will also help minimize the economic impacts of storms.”

Besides providing more funding to FEMA for pre-disaster mitigation resources, the Biden administration was also working with NASA to develop a new climate data system to better understand how the climate crisis will impact communities.

“NASA’s Earth System Observatory will be a new architecture of advanced spaceborne Earth observation systems, providing the world with an unprecedented understanding of the critical interactions between Earth’s atmosphere, land, ocean, and ice processes,” the White House said in the release.  

“These processes determine how the changing climate will play out at regional and local levels, on near and long-term time scales.”