I suspect the main issue is more cultural than monetary. The US military (well most branches ) are prepared to go somewhere (nearly anywhere) and not only survive the local environment but conduct various military operations. By and large that also includes a lot of practice at getting out in the weather and being uncomfortable while setting up a base of operations in a largely unprepared site.

FEMA on the other hand is basically a part of civil government (not military) and not to put too fine a point on it a major Bureaucracy. Now I am sure there are some real go getters in the organization but culturally they are not prepared, trained or practiced (in the same sense as the military) to go somewhere with absolutely no infrastructure and bring their own logistics and planning tail/capabilities with them. So they descend on some unlucky disaster area and in order to perform their mission, they need to establish comms, shelter, provisioning etc. for themselves. Since this is a disaster and the people in charge must be at their best this means getting the appropriate sleeping, eating and meeting accommodations (planned by and for people who are essentially bureaucrats). So you take over the local hotels etc. (since that is how your travel is typically done).

Maybe FEMA should have a larger emphasis on field training/exercises and generally roughing it / making do with mobile/temporary camps like the military. I won't get started on the byzantine rules involving who does what when for disasters (at least not this time )

- Eric