When Disaster Strikes: Dealing with FEMA

By Rocky Lopes
COMMUNITY SERVICES PROJECT MANAGER

Nearly seven million acres burned by wildfires across the U.S. at August’s end. Seventy counties in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas declared federal disaster areas thanks to flooding this past spring and summer.  Massive snow and ice storms during the Valentine’s Day blizzard.

When disasters happen, there’s little time to bring yourself up to speed on how FEMA works or how it can help you. That’s why we’ve prepared this quick overview of FEMA to keep handy before disaster strikes.

The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act — Public Law 93-288, as amended — is designed to provide assistance to people as well as state and local governments when disaster strikes.

The act provides support in three phases, including preparedness and mitigation to avoid or minimize the effects of a disaster, response support during the disaster and recovery from the event.

This article focuses on assistance available after disaster strikes.

Disaster assistance

When tragedy strikes, families, businesses and communities seek assistance to repair homes and stores and to restore vital services. The types and levels of disaster assistance depend on the severity of the damage and the declarations that result from the disaster event.

Your local county emergency manager will provide you the details on the declaration process. Typically, however, only a Presidential Declaration (Major Disaster or Disaster Emergency) will result in federal financial assistance.

The Declaration Process

It once was the case that a Presidential Disaster Declaration was not made until a state’s governor requested it after an event. However, through legislation passed by Congress in 2006, FEMA is now authorized to pre-position resources for disaster recovery before an event like an oncoming hurricane. This was recently seen when Hurricane Dean threatened the Gulf Coast of Texas in August of this year.

However, in order for full assistance to become available to counties and affected jurisdictions, a state’s governor must still officially request a Presidential Declaration and the president must authorize it. This declaration process is managed by a state’s Emergency Management or Homeland Security Department through FEMA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Assistance available

Following a disaster, the federal government (through the president) may make available two types of assistance, individual and public.

Individual assistance provides help directly to private individuals — business owners, homeowners and renters — as they recover from disasters. These programs are largely funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration, although other federal, state and local agencies support the overall Individual Assistance program. Small Business Administration (SBA) loan assistance may also be available under an SBA declaration for smaller events.

When a Declaration of Major Disaster or Emergency is made by the president, the Public Assistance program provides cost reimbursement aid to local governments (state, county, local, municipal authorities and school districts) and certain non-profit agencies that were involved in disaster response and recovery programs or that suffered loss or damage to facilities or property used to deliver governmental-like services.

The Public Assistance program is largely funded by the FEMA with both local and state matching contributions required.

The federal share of assistance is not less than 75 percent of the eligible cost for emergency measures and permanent restoration. The grantee (usually the state) determines how the non-federal share (up to 25 percent) is split with the subgrantees (eligible applicants, which are usually local governments).

Document, document, document

First things first: Typically, neighboring jurisdictions provide help through mutual aid after a disaster happens. Usually, but not always, the immediate mutual aid is not retroactively reimbursable through federal assistance. Ongoing mutual aid, however, like a neighboring county staffing a fire department or loaning a truck and crew to staff it, may be reimbursable. Make sure careful and thorough records are kept that document the following:

• Who made the request for aid, and
• What was offered and what was used. Itemize people, supplies, equipment, hours worked, etc.

The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC, www.emacweb.org) process has a very good method of helping to track requests and resources provided by other states.

Similar tracking should be engaged for intrastate resources.

• Where the aid was used and why it was needed
• How long it was used or kept in service. This also applies, for example, to how many hours responding firefighters, law enforcement officers, EMTs and paramedics worked. 

Getting FEMA help after a disaster

FEMA assistance goes to your state. Your county’s local emergency manager likely is the designee who is involved in the process of requesting FEMA assistance through your state.

Important: just because your county may be included on the list of affected areas in a Presidential Disaster Declaration doesn’t necessarily mean that it will get Public Assistance.          

Your county must be specifically listed as a “subgrantee” in the state’s request to FEMA. Therefore, it is very important to coordinate early on with your state emergency management agency or designee in the governor’s office who is handling the application process.

For most disasters, one grant application is made but is often amended to include additional jurisdictions and to change amounts of requested assistance once damage assessment is completed and recovery work is under way.

If your local emergency manager needs help with the complex process of requesting Public Assistance from FEMA, he or she should consider asking colleagues in other counties who have been through it. Most states have a state association of emergency managers. (List of state associations is here: www.iaem.com/stateassociations). Contact the state association’s president for guidance.

Further, NACo’s affiliate, the International Association of Emergency Managers (www.iaem.com) has many resources and information that can help, too.

More information on FEMA’s Public Assistance Grant Program, as well as instructions, guidance, regulations and procedures, is on FEMA’s Web site here: www.fema.gov/government/grant/pa/index.shtm.

(Randall C. Duncan, emergency management director, Sedgwick County, Kan.also contributed to this report.)