Federal cuts to a FEMA program that helps communities build weather-proof infrastructure could put many local projects in limbo.
The Building Resilient Infrastructure Communities program, also known as BRIC, helps prepare communities before severe weather events happen. Cuts to BRIC affect more than $9 million in grants meant for Kentucky.
Carey Johnson is a floodplain manager and one of the founding members of the Kentucky Association of Mitigation Managers. He says the cuts put many projects at risk.
“That's a big blow to communities across the state, like Jeffersontown, Salt Lick, Floyd County, Powell County, Franklin County, that have had some of those projects awarded that they now will not be able to, well, not only not move forward with, but not implement at all,” Johnson said.
Johnson says those federal dollars account for around 75% of hazard mitigation funding, and that they can’t be easily replaced.
“There certainly can be pivots to other authorized programs, potentially, that would come from the federal level. But simply stated, without federal inputs, mitigation at the state and the local level will come to a standstill,” Johnson said.
A national release from FEMA says the program was “wasteful and ineffective,” and “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected than natural disasters.”
Johnson hopes the money could be repurposed with another federal program after reorganization.
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