and shaw university located in downtown raleigh was forced to close for the remainder of the semester due to the immense damage to its campus. mr. president, we will never be able to prejudiciary committee the whims of mother nature, but we are able to prepare and prepare we must because right now fema's disaster relief fund is running dangerously low. even before hurricane irene eye riefd, we were using using $400 million a month on disaster relief efforts. today the fund is down to to $377 million. not enough for a week of spending before hurricane irene hit. and we still have three weeks to go in this fiscal year. if we don't act now to fix this shortfall, millions of americans will be left behind. already, fema is shifting funds away from virtually -- from vitally needed reconstruction projects in previously hard-hit areas to what they call the immediate needs assistance. well, i don't believe any one of us wants to be in the position of telling one of our constituents, one of our small business owners, one of our school principals that we can't help because they were not considered an immediate need. american victims of na