The Federal Highway Administration provided $871.2 million in Emergency Relief or ER funds to help 39 states – as well as American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and tribal governments – make repairs to roads and bridges damaged by storms, floods, and other unexpected events over the last three years.
[Above photo from the Mississippi DOT.]
FHWA noted in a statement that its ER program reimburses states, territories, federal land management agencies, and tribal governments for eligible expenses associated with damage from natural disasters or other emergency situations – helping pay for the reconstruction or replacement of damaged highways and bridges, along with the arrangement of detours and replacement of guardrails or other damaged safety devices.
[As an aside, the video below compiled by the North Carolina DOT highlights some of the infrastructure damage caused by Hurricane Dorian as it moved up the East Coast.]
This round of ER funding disbursements includes:
- More than $220 million for Puerto Rico to continue repairs following Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
- More than $157 million to California, including more than $115 million for 2017 winter storms.
- Nearly $110 million for Tennessee, the bulk of which is for severe storms in 2019.
- More than $53 million for North Carolina, with $36 million of that for Hurricane Florence related damage alone.
- More than $18 million for flooding in Mississippi in 2018 and 2019.
- More than $12 million for volcanic eruption and earthquakes in Hawaii.
- $68 million for the March 2019 storms in Nebraska.
- More than $6.5 million for tribal governments for a variety of events in California, Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
This follows ER funding disbursements by the FHWA of $705.7 million in February – with about $153 million paying for repairs to damage caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, which all occurred in late 2017.
The agency has also released a further $54.9 million ER funds to help states repair roads and bridges damaged by heavy spring floods – roughly three times higher than the $19.8 million awarded during the same period in 2018.
Other federal agencies are offering disaster aid as well. For example, the Economic Development Administration – a division of the Department of Commerce – published the Fiscal Year 2019 Disaster Supplemental Notice of Funding Opportunity on August 13 making $587 million available to eligible grantees in communities impacted by Presidentially-declared natural disasters in 2018, along with floods and tornadoes in 2019.
The EDA said in a statement that such disaster grants are made by its regional offices under the agency’s Economic Adjustment Assistance program, which enables the agency to make awards that support a wide range of construction and non-construction activities in areas which experience sudden and prolonged severe economic dislocation.
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State DOTs Support Crash Responder Safety Week
November 22, 2024
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