By Jack Phillips Contributing Writer  The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the agency has enough resources to deal with Hurricane Milton, expected to slam into Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday, as well as dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.  However, FEMA may not have enough money to deal with any more crises, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told Fox News on Monday evening.  “We don’t have enough money to continue throughout the rest of the year,” she said, adding that her agency has been “able to anticipate last year, this year, and even going into next year, that we are not going to have enough to pay all of the recovery bills.”   Criswell reiterated that FEMA does “have enough funds to absolutely get through the response for this hurricane, as well as the continued response for Hurricane Helene.”  “I have the full authorization to spend against the president’s fiscal year ’25 budget,” she said. “And we will continue to meet the needs of the individuals that are impacted by these storms.  “But we don’t have enough money to continue throughout the rest of the year. And we went into immediate needs funding earlier in the year to make sure we can do just what we’ve been doing through Helene, as well as now the preparations for Milton.”   Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose department oversees FEMA, said this week that the agency will be able to respond to both Helene and Milton.  The secretary was asked by MSNBC pundit and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday to respond to a report claiming that FEMA is facing a staffing shortage ahead of the hurricane.  Mayorkas asserted that FEMA can handle several crises at the same time, saying, “We have the personnel” and that “FEMA likes to say it is FEMA flexible. We can respond to multiple events at a single time.  “And everybody should rest confident that FEMA has the resources.  “We already have 900 personnel deployed, pre-positioned in Florida, who were responding to Hurricane Helene, people who were responding previously to Hurricanes Idalia and Debby,” he added. “We are there. We have search and rescue teams; the Army Corps of Engineers are there. We are ready.”  Questions about FEMA’s response to Helene were raised earlier this month amid reports of significant damage across western North Carolina and previous comments from Mayorkas that FEMA is running out of money.  “We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas told reporters this past week. “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”  Some Republicans have pointed to an April announcement from FEMA that the agency would provide funding for possibly illegal immigrants who recently came into the United States.  Criticism from Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, over FEMA’s response to Helene has drawn pushback from Criswell and the agency, who have claimed they are spreading false information.  President Joe Biden told congressional leaders this past week that they should provide more funding to FEMA, writing that “immediate needs” can be taken care of, but “the fund does face a shortfall at the end of the year.”  “Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs. The Congress should provide FEMA additional resources to avoid forcing that kind of unnecessary trade-off and to give the communities we serve the certainty of knowing that help will be ongoing, both for the short- and long-term,” he wrote in a letter published by the White House on Friday.  The National Hurricane Center said that Milton is expected to remain in “major hurricane status,” meaning a Category 3 or stronger, when it hits Florida’s Gulf Coast near Tampa on Wednesday evening. As of the publication of this story, the storm is a strong Category 4, with 150 mph winds, it said.  The post FEMA director: Enough money for Hurricane Milton, not rest of year   appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.