Congressional and National Updates
Public comments on a FEMA Interim Final Rule reworking a portion of the agency’s Individual Assistance program are due by July 22.
Rural community leaders pressed for greater infrastructure and response funding at a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy. “I can’t overstate the importance of having available flexible low-cost or no-cost money that can be deployed quickly following a disaster,” said Julie Moore, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. “There simply isn’t time to wait for Congress to designate and appropriate additional disaster related funds.”
An editorial by the Virginia-Pilot and Daily Press Editorial Board called for resources and new thinking given FEMA’s looming budget woes.
Representative Josh Harder (D-CA) penned a letter to FEMA urging the agency to declare extreme heat and wildfire smoke as major disasters. While the agency cannot declare major disasters without requests from states, the agency has denied every request for a major disaster due to extreme heat it has received in the last decade.
Hurricane Beryl
Hurricane Beryl made landfall around Matagorda County around 4 am on July 8. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who was in Taiwan on a business trip during the storm, preemptively issued disaster declarations for 121 counties in Texas and left Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to oversee the situation. Five hours after reaching land, Beryl weakened into a tropical storm and, by evening, into a tropical depression. On Tuesday afternoon, Lieutenant Governor Patrick requested federal assistance, and President Biden approved a disaster declaration.
Beryl was responsible for seven deaths in Texas, including a Houston Police Department information security officer. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez reported that two people were killed by trees falling on their houses, and two homeless people in Montgomery County were killed when a tree fell on their tent. Emergency responders have already performed 25 water rescues, most of which were necessary after drivers became stranded in flooded roads.
More than 2.7 million people lost power in Texas, including 80% of Houston residents. As of Wednesday afternoon, 1.3 million people remained without power, including cell service and air conditioning. Heat combined with a lack of cooling services has made it unhealthy for some residents to remain at home. Numerous cooling centers have been set up around Houston (find a map here); however, the city has a shortage of generators, limiting the amount of relief possible. This problem was already observed during the May derecho and has worsened with Beryl. The head of Texas’ division of emergency management, Nim Kidd, stated that restoring power was the top priority.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire reports that several of Houston’s bayous are over-capacity, leading to increased flooding of the surrounding neighborhoods. The city averaged 5-10 inches of rain and over 6.5 feet of storm surge. Inefficiencies in open ditch drainage systems exacerbated flooding in surrounding areas such as in Northeast Houston, a predominantly minority and low-income neighborhood that contains 80% of the city’s open ditches.
Quintana, Port Aransas, and the entirety of Refugio County enacted a mandatory evacuation of residents on July 6. Refugio County Judge Jhiela Poynter decided that since the county has still not adequately recovered from Hurricane Harvey and has limited resources to help with response, evacuation is the safest choice. Buses transported residents who could not leave on their own to a shelter in Laredo. Voluntary evacuations were enacted in Aransas, Brazoria, Calhoun, Cameron, Galveston Jackson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Matagorda, Nueces, and San Patricio counties. Despite these orders, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick worried that not enough people had left high-risk areas. Many Texans appeared less concerned about Beryl after successfully weathering Category 4 Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Houses have been damaged across the Texas coastline due to powerful winds. Damon, Fulshear, Lakewood Forest, and Manvel reported large amounts of debris and structural damage. Most buildings and hotels within 20 minutes of Surfside beach suffered roof damage and power loss, and a woman was rescued after Beryl ripped the roof off her house. Meanwhile, a tornado touched down in Jasper County, Texas, around 11 am Monday morning, damaging roofs, houses, and power lines in the area. An assisted living center was evacuated, and several people were trapped in their homes. Approximately 110 tornado watches were declared in various counties across Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.
More resources for assistance can be found here.
State and Local Updates
California
Wildfires are burning in California as the state faces a record-breaking extreme heat wave. The Thompson fire near Oroville, Butte County, led to mandatory evacuation orders of 28,000 residents. Around 30 houses and other structures have been damaged. Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for the fire, which began on July 3.
Iowa
Severe storms led to flash flooding across Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota during the weekend of June 22-23. As much as 18 inches of rainfall were reported in Sioux Falls, on the border of Iowa and South Dakota. The floods destroyed hundreds of houses and impacted a total of 1,900 properties across Iowa. Governor Kim Reynolds reported 250 water rescues and over 1,000 residents requiring overnight shelter. President Biden declared a major disaster for the state on July 24, allowing federal assistance to be sent to Clay, Emmet, Lyon, Plymouth, and Sioux counties. FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers have been set up around Northwest Iowa, and online applications can be found here.
Louisiana
Outer bands of Tropical Storm Beryl hit Louisiana on July 8, with five tornadoes touching down across the state. Resulting extreme weather caused one death, major home damage, and power outages in northwestern Louisiana. Governor Jeff Landry declared an emergency declaration to begin the federal recovery assistance process. A few weeks before, the first named storm of the season, Tropical Storm Alberto, caused coastal flooding in Louisiana and Texas.
Minnesota
Flooding from storms across the Midwest on June 22 led to a partial failure of the Rapidan Dam near Mankato, Minnesota. Water levels rose to more than eight feet, damaging up to a third of homes in some towns. Recovery efforts are complicated by the fact that fewer than 7,500 Minnesotans have flood insurance. President Joe Biden approved Governor Tim Walz’s request for a disaster declaration in 22 counties across the state.
New Mexico
The South Fork Fire and Salt Fire began on June 17 on the Mescalero Apache Reservation. The fires forced the entire town of Ruidoso, New Mexico – with a population of more than 7,000 people – to evacuate. The fires killed two people, spread 40 square miles, and destroyed about 1,500 structures along their paths. Roswell, 75 miles away, was “filled to capacity,” providing hotels and emergency shelters for evacuees, said the director of Roswell Community Disaster Relief Enrique Moreno. Despite full containment not expected until July 15, residents are able to start returning to Ruidoso, though they have been cautioned that their homes may not have access to gas, electricity, or water. President Joe Biden declared major disaster status for parts of the state to assist with recovery funding. Information on federal assistance can be found here.
New York
An article in Grist details how those living on fixed incomes in New York City are dealing with the unprecedented heat wave that has enveloped the area.
North Carolina
Princeville, North Carolina, the oldest community in the U.S. founded by formerly enslaved people, is using a federal grant to move their town to higher ground. Despite these efforts, much town history has been lost. The town has flooded more than a dozen times in the last century, with Hurricane Matthew submerging the town in more than 10 feet of water eight years ago.
Resilience and Mitigation Corner
FEMA Announces $1 Billion in Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Funding
FEMA announced that it would be awarding $1 billion of Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) funding to 656 mitigation and resiliency projects across the country on July 2. Some BRIC funding is allotted on a competitive basis, and some is reserved for non-competitive uses. Either way, funding can be utilized for initiatives that will aid territories, tribal nations, states, and local governments in becoming more resilient to extreme weather and disasters.
Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, about $398 million additional dollars were added to this funding cycle. The DHRC is also highly encouraged to hear that $587 million in funding will go to Justice40 communities, which are areas impacted by environmental racism that have undergone decades of disinvestment.
Read more about BRIC funding for fiscal year 2023 here.
Read more about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s contributions to resiliency and mitigation projects here.
Read more about Justice40 here.