Funding for More Than a Rainy Day

By Kevin Brass

Long before Hurricane Irma devastated the Florida coastline in 2017, Miami-Dade County had identified more than $100 million in unfunded disaster mitigation projects. In the years since, the list has more than doubled as the county increasingly faces issues with storm surge and rising sea levels, says Jim Murley, chief resilience officer for the county.

In Irma's wake, federal funds flowed into the county for repairs and recovery expenses, but little funding has been available to help protect neighborhoods from future storms.

"There were no big steps forward [on mitigation]," Murley says. "You end up spending a lot of [federal] money on debris removal."

Fortunately, at-risk communities like Miami-Dade received good news last fall, when Congress, in a rare bipartisan initiative, approved the Disaster Recovery Reform Act. Section 1234 of the act established the National Public Infrastructure Pre-Disaster Hazard Mitigation Fund, which sets aside six percent of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fund specifically for pre-disaster mitigation projects. If this program had been in place in 2017, $3.4 billion would have been available in 2018 for projects to "prevent or reduce loss of life and property in future years," FEMA deputy administrator for resilience Daniel Kaniewski told Fox News in May.

The new program — dubbed Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities — along with a few other mitigation-related provisions in the DRRA, signals a fundamental shift in the federal approach to disaster funding, one that provides a clear pathway to financial support for mitigation projects. Previous FEMA guidelines focused on providing funds for rebuilding and returning communities to their pre-disaster state, not protecting against future incidents.

"It's a game-changer to be able to invest that kind of money before a disaster," Kaniewski told a congressional panel in May.

It remains unclear how the program funds will be directed and when the rules will be announced; FEMA doesn't expect to release a formal notice until the end of 2020. So planners across the country are still in a wait-and-see mode, attempting to gauge the potential impact of the new funding.

"Nobody wants to complain about dollars," Murley says. "We just need to see the rules so we can take projects off the shelf."

But many are hopeful.

"Putting funds toward building more resilient neighborhoods ahead of storms makes so much more sense," says Jim Reddick, director of emergency operations and preparedness for Norfolk, Virginia. "The [DRRA] is stepping in the right direction."

A woman walks by a tree toppled by strong winds in Miami during Hurricane Irma. The city already had mitigation projects waiting for funding before Irma struck in September 2017. Photo by Yin Bogu/Xinhua/Alamy Live News.

Preparation pays

Planners have been arguing for years that mitigation is simply good business. A recent study by the National Institute of Building Sciences concluded that every $1 spent on pre-disaster mitigation saves $6 in recovery costs.

Yet traditionally, post-disaster funds available from FEMA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery allocation have focused on returning communities to the way they were, not creating defensive infrastructure. According to HUD, CDBG-DR funds "must be used for ... necessary expenses related to disaster relief, longterm recovery, and restoration of infrastructure, housing, and economic revitalization."

"When you think of pre-disaster [projects], the number of programs is pretty limited in terms of what is available and authorized," Riddick said.

Congressional support for funding more mitigation projects grew following a rash of major storms in 2017, which caused more than $300 billion in damages, says Jason Jordan, director of policy for APA. Before that, Jordan says, there wasn't a strong impetus to reform the Stafford Act, the 1988 amendment to the Disaster Relief Act of 1974, which gave FEMA control of administering federal relief efforts.

The new legislation was pushed by congressional representatives of communities facing the likelihood of more disasters, regardless of political affiliation. Negotiations were streamlined by removing climate change from the discussion, and the legislation focused on removing bureaucratic steps and empowering more local control of funds, which helped win further bipartisan support.

"Awareness is high that mitigation is a cost saver," Jordan says.

The final bill was included as part of the reauthorization of funding to the Federal Aviation Administration. It passed the House by a vote of 398 to 23; the Senate approved the bill 93–6. In addition to the new funding allocations, the Act will also allow funds to be used for improving building codes and adds language that allows facilities to be rebuilt to higher resiliency standards.

It also gives local governments more flexibility in how they spend funds targeting repairs, as well as $900 million per year through 2022 for FEMA Emergency Management Performance Grants.

But until rule making is finalized, many questions remain about how communities will be able to use the funds. For example, it's unclear how the program will address proven green mitigation practices like wetlands restoration, forest protection, and green flood controls, says Shannon Burke, manager of APA's Hazards Planning Center. FEMA has traditionally focused on "gray infrastructure," such as levees and drainage pipes, to manage stormwater and storm surges, though studies show green infrastructure is very effective at reducing risk.

"There is a concern that future planning is not being considered as much as it should," Burke says. From wetlands restorations to increasing sand on beaches, there is a need to improve the flow of funds to projects that allow communities to think of risk holistically and use natural elements to create long-term protections.

FEMA Funding Analysis

FEMA funding has traditionally focused on returning communities to the way they were before disaster struck, not creating defensive infrastructure or building resilience to future natural hazards. But recent federal legislation such as the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, passed last fall, and the disaster relief bill, signed into law in June 2019, have bucked that trend and allocated billions in federal dollars to support disaster mitigation.

Source: FEMA

Casting a wider net

In Butte County, California, which has been pummeled by historic fires and flooding in recent years, Emergency Services Officer Cindi Dunsmoor has already seen a change in attitude toward making more money available for mitigation. Her focus has been on the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which in California is administered through the governor's Office of Emergency Services.

"We have definitely seen more funding come through than we would have seen in the past," Dunsmoor says.

She takes a broad approach to applying for grants, often looking for ways to include resiliency elements into larger public works projects. For example, Section 406 of the Stafford Act allows communities in presidentially declared disaster areas to incorporate "cost-effective betterments" into a permanent recovery work project. According to Dunsmoor, that can be something as simple as bigger culverts and wider shoulders on a road project.

Her county is working on an update of its Hazard Mitigation Plan, making sure to include "everything that we can come up with," Dunsmoor says. "One thing we've learned. ... If you think you are planning for something big, triple it."

To improve the city's chances of securing available federal mitigation funds, Norfolk, Virginia, has shifted its focus to large-scale resiliency projects like levees and drainage projects such as this green infrastructure retrofit. (See "The Silver Lining of Sea-Level Rise," Planning, August/September 2018.) Photo by Sahar Coston-Hardy.

Looking ahead

Going forward, there is a sufficient level of bipartisan support to address resiliency across a wide variety of federal programs, APA's Jordan says. "Congressional committees are focused on how those dollars are being spent and whether they are advancing resiliency. Additional funding will help infuse mitigation across the spectrum of response and recovery."

Congress is scheduled to deal with many related issues over the next few months, including the reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program, which is due to end on November 30. Next steps also include a hard look at the CDBG-DR program, administered by the HUD, which could also direct more funding toward mitigation.

But evidence of the fragility of bipartisan support was demonstrated earlier this year when Congress spent more than six months battling over a disaster aid bill, which was caught up in crossfire over everything from Puerto Rico to funding for a border wall.

The final $19.1 billion bill that was signed by President Trump in June included a significant boost in available mitigation funds, including as $3.25 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers disaster mitigation projects; $600 million for Economic Development Assistance grants for long-term recovery in areas affected by disasters in 2018 and 2019; and a $2.5 billion boost for the CDBG-DR program.

As of June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting a "near normal" Atlantic hurricane season of four to eight hurricanes this year, and a record snowpack and powerful storms in many parts of the country have increased flooding activity in the Midwest and Southeast.

Nebraska, Missouri, and Iowa have already experienced record flooding, with damages totaling more than $12.5 billion, according to AccuWeather, the weather service.

According to NOAA forecasts, more than 200 million people will be at risk of flooding this year. "This is shaping up to be a potentially unprecedented flood season," Ed Clark, director of NOAA's National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, told Wired magazine.

Many communities have already been shifting their strategies, looking for better ways to target available mitigation funds. In Norfolk, the city has decided to move away from an emphasis on elevating homes to targeting more large-scale projects, such as drainage and levees, which might stand a better chance of getting funding now, Riddick says.

The DRRA move to funding mitigation is definitely progress in the right direction, he says. "At least the money is real and we can apply for something more than elevating a couple of homes."

Meanwhile, the process makes it more crucial than ever for communities to have a disaster recovery plan in place, Riddick notes. After every storm there will be a new rush of funding for mitigation. Communities need to be able to take action when the funds are available, Riddick says. "When the next big storm hits, the money will be flowing and we need to be ready."

Kevin Brass writes about planning, design, and development for the New York Times, Financial Times, and Urban Land magazine.