FEMA funds delayed by Trump admin leave rural towns in peril : NPR

The city of Duryea, PA, is on the banks of the Lackawanna River. Residents can see the low, calm water from their churches, schools, and homes.

But, when it rains too much, the river rises and can cause devastating floods.

Since the 1970s, a high earthen embankment has protected Duriya from flood waters. But the river has become higher than before. Changes in the river due to development combined with the effects of climate change, which have made heavy rain more common, mean that the Duryea now faces more water than before.

“We’re seeing increased storm surges and increased water volumes,” says Laura Holbrook, director of the flood protection authority for Luzerne County, Pa., where the city is located. She says the embankment at Duriya needs to be raised by about 3 feet to adequately protect the city.

The clock is ticking to get upgraded, as disaster could strike at any moment. Large-scale floods hit the county in 2011 and 2014. Several major floods over the past three years have caused millions of dollars in damage in the area around Duryea, and the risk is only increasing. The heaviest storms in the Northeast today drop 60% more rain than in the mid-20th century, According to National Climate Assessment.

“It definitely keeps me up at night,” says Holbrook.

However, fixing the Duriya Dam has so far been impossible. Local officials spent hundreds of thousands of dollars designing levee upgrades, hoping to quickly apply for $11 million in federal funds to complete the repairs.

But there has been no way to access federal grants for such projects in the past year because the Trump administration has blocked billions of dollars for disaster preparedness and prevention that local governments — especially in rural areas — rely on.

Last week, in response to a lawsuit by 20 states, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) agreed to restart the largest federal grant program for disaster preparedness. Competition for those funds is likely to be intense, as two years’ worth of applicants will compete for one year’s money. Public filings released this week By FEMA. The administration will prioritize funding “major infrastructure projects” FEMA press release.

FEMA did not respond to NPR’s questions about how long it would take for funds to resume flowing, and whether climate-related projects would be eligible to move forward.

The delays and uncertainty mean Duryea and hundreds of smaller towns are still waiting for the federal government to distribute money that Congress has already appropriated, says Andrew Rumbach, who studies disaster policy at the Urban Institute think tank.

“Unfortunately we are a country full of sitting ducks,” says Rumbach. “They are vulnerable to hazards such as floods and wildfires, and the climate is changing and making these events more common and more costly.”

Mixed messages from the federal government

Small, rural communities like Duryea rely on the federal government to pay for infrastructure projects that protect residents from extreme weather.

“We don’t have the money to do it, and we don’t have the tax base to do it,” says Keith Moss, emergency management director for Duryea, where there are about 5,000 residents.

The cost of upgrading the local levee is approximately three times the city’s total annual budget.

“They don’t have the resources,” says Congressman Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), who represents Luzerne County and grew up in the area. “They don’t even have $10 million.”

Under the first Trump administration, the federal government significantly increased its support for such communities. In 2018, President Trump signed a bill providing more funding for everything from flood walls to wildfire protection. FEMA was in charge of distributing the funds, and agency report The following year it said the investment would “save lives, reduce disaster suffering, and reduce disaster costs at all levels.”

In fact, research shows Infrastructure can be improved before disaster strikes reduce damage.

That 2018 FEMA program, called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, was hugely popular. Application exceeded available funds Every year, even after the Biden administration significantly increases the pot of money.

But soon after taking office last year, the Trump administration program canceledSaying it is “eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.” The federal government stopped distributing billions of dollars that had already been promised to local communities for projects, and also stopped processing new applications for funding.

This led to outrage from local and state officials across the country, including in places that voted heavily for President Trump, such as Luzerne County, PA. Lawmakers, including Rep. Bresnahan, introduced several bills seeking to force FEMA to restart the program, and 20 states sued the administration over canceling the program.

Late last year, a federal judge ordered the administration to reinstate the program, though it is unclear when the money will start flowing in again. In the past, FEMA took a year or more to review applications and make decisions about whether to fund specific projects, and under the Trump administration the agency thousands of employees lostWhich could potentially lead to even more administrative delays.

In Luzerne County, concern is growing about delayed funding. Duryea emergency manager Moss says local residents consistently come to local council meetings and express fears about the risk of flooding in the city. “I think people are really concerned,” he says.

Uncertainty about which projects will be funded

The Trump administration has repeatedly called for the creation of FEMA heavy cuts Or even removed, and blamed the Biden administration for spending too much money on climate change. Those criticisms were reiterated in an email FEMA sent to states last week about restarting BRIC under the court order.

“Unfortunately, under President Biden, BRIC has become mired in bureaucracy, focused on ‘climate change’ initiatives and rife with inefficiencies,” the email reads in part. And incoming DHS Secretary Markway Mullin, who will take over the department next week, suggested that FEMA should be “restructured” during his recent Senate confirmation hearing.

Those concerns raise questions about which communities will be able to receive funding for future projects, and how much money will be available going forward.

The current round of funding includes additional assistance for “small poor communities”, promising that the federal government will pay a larger portion of the total project cost if those communities win a grant.

But agency leaders over the past year have reversed most of the initiatives taken under the Biden administration, including those changes is for sure Such communities can compete with larger, densely populated cities and states, which often have teams of full-time grant-writers and emergency managers.

By comparison, rural communities and small towns often struggle to apply for large federal grants.

“It’s very difficult because communities have volunteer fire departments, volunteer emergency management people,” says James Brozena, a former flood protection officer for Luzerne County, PA, who now helps local governments throughout the region with flood risk management. “In a lot of these communities there are a few little old ladies who basically staff the entire office.”

And the current administration’s hostility toward climate change-related projects also raises questions about what types of infrastructure will get the green light for federal funding in the future. For example, sea walls and domestic wildfire protection efforts address the impacts of sea level rise and more severe wildfires, which are directly linked to climate change.