U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’ words have come back to haunt him as video from earlier this year touting the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) preparedness before Hurricane Helene exposed shortcomings in the organization.

Mayorkas this week warned that FEMA was running out of funds as hurricane season continued to slam the southeastern United States. The organization has enough funds to deal with the aftermath of Helene but would not have enough to “make it through the season.”

This warning stands in stark contrast to previous comments Mayorkas made in the summer assuring that FEMA would be able to handle upcoming weather crises. 

“FEMA is tremendously prepared,” Mayorkas assured reporters in a video from July. “This is what we do, this is what they do, and the key here … is to also make sure the communities who are potentially impacted are prepared as well.” 

LAWMAKERS OUTRAGED OVER FEMA FUNDING CONCERNS

“And it’s not just hurricanes and wildfires – also extreme heat, which certainly some parts of the United States are experiencing,” he added. Mayorkas stressed that FEMA has “exercised these muscles, regrettably, year after year” due to the “increasing frequency and gravity of weather events.”

However, Mayorkas did argue that FEMA’s disaster relief fund remained in a precarious position and needed fresh funding from Congress ahead of an expected heavy hurricane season. In July, he anticipated running out by “mid-August.” 

Mayorkas stressed the need to be ready for the “consequences” of increasingly severe weather events as climate change continues to exacerbate disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires. 

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ‘FAILED TO ACT’ IN HURRICANE HELENE AFTERMATH: REP. CORY MILLS

Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the East Coast last week. Floodwaters and mudslides almost entirely wiped out some communities such as Asheville, North Carolina, where residents have remained without electricity and cell service while facing water, gas and food shortages. 

Cars sit submerged in a flooded area at a used tire dealer after Hurricane Helene in Hendersonville, North Carolina, on Sept. 27, 2024. (Ken Ruinard/USA Today Network via Reuters)

“They’re afraid. People are getting on edge,” retired Asheville, North Carolina, Police Officer Steve Antle told Fox News Digital. “They’ve already had people doing some minor looting in the area. Because there’s no power … so it’s just a free-for-all at this point. There are no traffic signals. There are not enough police officers.”

FEMA arrived in Western North Carolina on Monday after President Biden approved federal resources, but some residents as of Thursday said they still had not seen any federal officials. 

GEOGRAPHIC TERRITORY OF HURRICANE DISASTER IS ‘GIGANTIC’: REP JARED MOSKOWITZ

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News host Sean Hannity that no FEMA rep had visited parts of South Carolina but had received assurances they would after he raised the issue with them. 

Flood damage at a bridge across Mill Creek in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 30, 2024 in Old Fort, North Carolina. The White House has approved disaster declarations in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama, freeing up federal emergency management money and resources for those states. ( Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

“You know where I’m going to look to get money to help with this disaster?” Graham said. “There’s a couple hundred billion dollars in the Inflation Reduction Act … that hasn’t been spent.”

“Why don’t we take money from the Inflation Reduction Act and apply it to this disaster?” Graham asked. “That’s what I’ll be trying to do.” 

Fox News Digital’s Audrey Conklin and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Former President Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will appear together on Friday for the first time in four years as they receive a briefing on recovery and relief efforts one week after Hurricane Helene tore a path of destruction after slamming into the southeast United States.

The former president and the popular two-term conservative Georgia governor are scheduled to be briefed on storm damage and to “deliver remarks to the press” as they team up during a visit to Evans, a town in the northeast portion of the state.

The event is not being described as a campaign stop.

For Trump, it’s his second trip this week to Georgia, following a visit on Monday in Valdosta. The state, along with North and South Carolina, and Tennessee, took direct hits from the powerful storm. The death toll from Hurricane Helene now stands at over 220, with hundreds still missing, more than 800,000 people in seven states still without power or running water, and damage estimated in the billions.

TRUMP CLAIMS BIDEN, HARRIS, STORM RESPONSE IS INCOMPETENT

With Trump locked in a margin-of-error presidential race with Vice President Kamala Harris, and Georgia and North Carolina crucial battleground states, Trump has repeatedly slammed President Biden and Harris over their handing of the federal response to the storm.

“It is going down as the WORST & MOST INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED ‘STORM,’ AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, EVER SEEN BEFORE,” Trump claimed in a social media post on Thursday, as Biden spent a second straight day in the southeast surveying storm damage. 

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON HURRICANE HELENE AFTERMATH

And Harris stopped in Georgia on Wednesday for storm briefings and to meet with local officials and victims of the storm, as she canceled a campaign swing in another key electoral state, Pennsylvania.

The vice president heads to North Carolina on Saturday to survey damage and get briefed on federal, state and local efforts.

When Trump visited Valdosta on Monday, he wasn’t joined by Kemp, who was surveying storm damage in other parts of Georgia.

For two years after his 2020 election defeat to President Biden, which included a razor-thin loss in Georgia, Trump attacked Kemp for failing to overturn the election results in his state. 

Trump urged, and then supported, a 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary challenge against Kemp by former Sen. David Perdue.

The former president toned down his criticism of the governor after Kemp crushed Perdue to easily win renomination on his way to re-election.

KEMP SAYS THERE’S NO PATH TO 270 FOR TRUMP WITHOUT GEORGIA

But in August, Trump went on a 10-minute tirade against Kemp at a rally in Atlanta just blocks from the Georgia State Capitol. He blamed the governor not only for failing to overturn the 2020 vote count but also for not stopping a county prosecutor from indicting the former president for his attempts to reverse the results.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally held in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 3, 2024. Reuters/Megan Varner

“He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy. And he’s a very average governor,” Trump said. “Little Brian. Little Brian Kemp. Bad guy.”

But just a couple of weeks later, in a major about face for Trump, the former president praised Kemp in a social media post “for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country.”

“I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” the Republican presidential nominee added.

Trump’s change of heart came amid a margin-of-error presidential race in Georgia.

The Peach State is one of seven key battlegrounds whose razor-thin margins decided Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and are likely to determine whether Harris or Trump succeeds the president in the White House.

Republican strategists agree that to recapture Georgia, Trump will need assistance from Kemp’s well-oiled and funded political machine to turn out GOP voters.

In this Nov. 4, 2018, file photo, then-Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, left, walks with then-President Donald Trump as Trump arrives for a rally in Macon, Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) (AP )

Kemp emphasized in an exclusive national interview with Fox News Digital in August that “there’s no path for former President Trump to win or any Republican . . . to get to 270 [electoral votes] without Georgia.”

The governor said his state “should be one that we win if we have all the mechanics that we need. And I’m working hard to help provide those in a lot of ways and turn the Republican vote out.”

“It’s my belief that we cannot afford four more years of [President] Joe Biden and Kamala Harris or Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz, which I think would probably be worse than even Biden and Harris were,” Kemp said.

Kemp also told Fox News at the time that Trump’s tirade from early August “was a small distraction that’s in the past” and emphasized that Republicans “need to stay focused on the future. . . . We need to be telling people why they should vote for us, what we’re going to do to make things better than they are right now. And there’s a host of issues that I think you could contrast Kamala Harris and her record.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

A Georgia man is thanking God after narrowly surviving being stranded in the North Carolina mountains during and directly after Hurricane Helene devastated the state on September 27.

Kyle Vargas of McDonough, Georgia hiked 13 miles on foot through the mountains after being stranded in the Tar Heel state while visiting Ashland with his brother for a work trip.

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“Just to look around and see trees everywhere and cars in sinkholes and stuff smashed…like I never seen anything like that before,” Vargas told FOX 5 Atlanta. “Man, I could cry right now… He just always showing me He got me.”

Vargas said that strangers offered the two men rides along the way, which they documented with video, and God helped him find his way back home to his wife. The two made it home without the use of GPS and after Vargas’ wife had given up looking for them.

“I knew God was just sending people our way,” said Vargas to FOX 5 Atlanta. “All it did was increase my faith in God.”

AMERICAN FLAG STANDS STRONG AFTER TOURIST TOWN LEVELED BY REMNANTS OF HURRICANE HELENE: ‘HOPE AND STRENGTH’

The Vargas brothers turned to evacuate the area on foot after being stranded for one day in the area over concern for Kyle’s wife. Many mountain roads were made nonfunctional for cars by downed trees and mudslides.

Vargas credits God with his safe return home after the devastation of Hurricane Helene. (WAGA)

“We didn’t think the storm was going to cause as much damage as it caused on the mountain that it did,” said Vargas to FOX 5 Atlanta. “Basically, we were trapped…we were stuck.”

The trek through the mountains took hours and the brothers had practically no phone service.

Kyle Vargas said he and his brother had to rinse off their boots in a nearby river to remove caked-on mud. (WAGA)

“We walked about 13 miles climbing over trees, walking through the mud that slid down on the road from the landslides, we had to rinse our feet off in a river,” said Vargas to FOX 5 Atlanta. 

The latest number of deaths recorded from the impact of Hurricane Helene is 225 as of the publishing of this article.