FEMA announces $660 million for FY 2020 Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants

Key Takeaways

On August 4, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for $660 million in FY 2020 Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) grants. States and localities will be eligible to apply for Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) and the new Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) pre-disaster mitigation grans, which replaced the existing Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) grant as part of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act (DRRA) of 2018. The application period opens on September 30, 2020.

$500 million is made available through the BRIC program to provide funding to states and localities to implement pre-disaster mitigation activities that reduce risk and disaster costs, and increase the resilience of critical infrastructure lifelines such as transportation, energy, communications and health facilities.

FEMA is also making $160 million available through FMA grants to help localities implement changes to reduce or eliminate risk of flood damage to structures insured by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). FEMA has allocated $70 million of the total amount for Community Flood Mitigation Projects such as floodwater diversion and flood-control measures.

FEMA will be offering a series of informational webinars for applicants to provide an overview of the grant programs and details about the agency’s funding priorities and review process. Dates and times for the webinars can be found below. Registration information will be available soon on FEMA’s BRIC website.

• Tuesday, August 18 from 2–3:30 p.m. EDT
• Thursday, August 20 from 2–3:30 p.m. EDT
• Tuesday, August 25 from 2–3:30 p.m. EDT

For more information on the grants and to access the application portal, please click here.