While eligible residents will receive flood assistance, local governments are still waiting
Flood-impacted residents in Whatcom and Skagit Counties are seeing FEMA dollars roll in after months of uncertainty.
The funds bolster existing efforts to rebuild and recover from December’s devastating floods, which caused an estimated $182 million in infrastructure damage statewide. It was the highest dollar figure FEMA damage assessment in the state in decades, according to the governor’s office.
Ashley Butenschoen, vice president of Whatcom Long Term Recovery Group, said it was “unfortunate it took so long for a federal declaration” to unlock the funds.
“There’s uncertainty now. We’re in this waiting period of will (residents) get approved,” she said. “It holds up other funding because if you get FEMA funding, you might not get other funding because we have to be careful of duplication of benefits, and so it puts a halt to things.”
So far, there have been 146 eligible registrations in Skagit County for nearly $3 million in FEMA funds, and $2 million has been issued to survivors in Whatcom, according to county officials.
FEMA programs for individual assistance do not have a set cap for geographic areas, and residents are still encouraged to apply before the June 10 deadline to do so. Individuals and families can apply by visiting disasterassistance.gov or calling 1-800-621-3362.
“There is a plethora of federal and state resources available, but time is running out soon to apply,” Skagit County spokesperson Jenn Rogers said.
FEMA help for households ranges from assistance for elevating homes or temporary housing to home repair costs, personal property loss and other disaster-caused expenses.
“As is typical, there is no expectation that FEMA resources will make ‘whole’ anyone who suffered flood-related losses,” said Amy Cloud, spokesperson for Whatcom County Division of Emergency Management. She added that FEMA is just one resource the county has worked to secure. The county council is currently looking at opening up using the Healthy Children Fund to help impacted families with children 0 to 5 years old.
In addition to FEMA, the U.S. Small Business Administration is offering loans for impacted businesses, individuals and nonprofits.
Homeowners are eligible for up to $500,000 to repair or replace their primary residences, and both homeowners and renters can receive up to $100,000 for damaged personal property, including cars. Businesses and nonprofits, meanwhile, are eligible for up to $2 million in assistance, including for economic losses due to road closures and evacuations. The interest rates for SBA disaster loans are as low as 2.875% for homeowners and renters, 4% for businesses and 3.625% for private nonprofits, with terms of up to 30 years. Eligibility depends on the type of loan; more information is available on the administration’s website.
The administration has received 68 applicants from Whatcom County and 65 from Skagit, with about 30 being denied across the two counties. So far, it has disbursed $708,309 to Whatcom applicants and $551,603 to Skagitonians, according to an administration spokesperson.
Counties still waiting on funds
Local governments themselves, however, are still waiting to see how much FEMA money they might get. Both Whatcom and Skagit counties are working on applications for the federal funds and hope to be reimbursed for costs they incurred from debris removal, infrastructure repairs, emergency response and more.
Skagit County estimates it spent $6.7 million on reimbursable flood-related costs, while Whatcom estimates over $5 million.
“That process is currently underway; it happens on a slower timeline so that FEMA’s direct efforts can be focused on impacted members of our community first. We do not have a dollar figure that FEMA funds will be, but may find out in the coming months, as projects are determined,” Cloud said.
Cloud added that Whatcom is also working with the state and federal governments to secure longer-term funding for disaster case management after the current round of federal aid ends.
‘Never enough’
Despite FEMA and other state and local resources, there are still gaps.
“It’s never enough,” Butenschoen said. “There’s a lot of community support, which is absolutely amazing, but there’s only so much you can extract from a community, especially in a time where we live in a state where things are expensive.”
Rogers, with Skagit County, said one of the biggest barriers for individual residents recovering from the floods has to do with where they live. For those on floodways, rebuilding is usually out of the question because their homes either didn’t have a permit originally for a residential structure or they sustained too much damage to be eligible to rebuild again.
“Federal, state and county laws heavily regulate the development of property in the floodway,” Rogers wrote in an email. “These regulations prohibit residential structures in areas designated by FEMA maps as ‘floodway,’ so we are often unable to issue a new building permit to them.”
Butenschoen said that working class poor are often more severely impacted because they don’t quite qualify for many forms of assistance.
“They kind of fall through the gaps, unfortunately. …Somebody might not qualify because they’re like $10 over,” she said. “We keep track of everyone’s needs and we’ll try to find resources for them, because just because they don’t qualify for a government grant doesn’t mean there aren’t resources out there for them.”
—By Sydnee Chapman