Whatcom County is anticipating $12 million in federal grants to support flood recovery efforts to hit mid-July, 20 months after floods devastated rural communities like Sumas, Everson and Nooksack.
The funds, provided by two separate grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), will allow Whatcom County to acquire destroyed homes and buildings and raise others with stilts. There are about 15 homes on the buyout list, and another 14 on the list for elevation.
Residents on the buyout and elevation lists have been waiting almost two years for the funds, while some plan to move out of the county entirely and others prepare for impending homelessness.
The federal process of acquiring the grants, though, moves slowly. Though the county council voted unanimously to use the funds in April, there has been little communication about when the grant funds will actually arrive.
“It’s been really hard because it’s been a long time since the flood, and we’re still waiting on funding,” Paula Harris, the county’s river and flood manager, said in April. “People are trying to get on with their lives.”
During May’s Flood Control Zone District Advisory Committee meeting, Harris told committee members FEMA said the money for the first round of grants — one valued at $9,578,533 for purchasing homes, and another valued at $2,517,712 for elevation — will be in the county’s books by mid-July.
“The very soonest would be the middle of July: that’s when they promised it to us,” Deb Johnson, a river and flood engineer for the county, said this week. “Once that funding comes through, they we still need to go through a contracting process with the state … it probably won’t be until August that we’re actually spending the money.”
The two floods, the first on Nov. 14 and the second on Nov. 28, devastated Whatcom County residents, damaged more than 1,000 homes and businesses, destroyed roads, displaced thousands and claimed the life of 50-year-old Jose Garcia.
