Details on how the federal government has assisted Davidson County’s storm recovery efforts over the last few months:
The money is still being totaled up, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency has announced that they’ve awarded almost $4 million to Davidson County to help recovery efforts from all the storms last year.
$3 million was for what’s called “Public Assistance.” That money went straight to the Davidson County government to help them rebuild damaged buildings, roads, and other infrastructure damaged by storms and tornadoes throughout the year.
Over the last few months the federal government also spent nearly $1 million on “Individual Assistance” to help Davidson County families recover from the tornadoes last December that left six dead and 23 injured. That’s money that goes directly to families instead of the government to help with fixing damaged homes or finding new ones.
Nine hundred Davidson County households got financial assistance ranging from a few hundred dollars up to $28,000.
It’s only the fifth time this century Davidson County has had a disaster so bad that qualified for Individual Assistance (not counting COVID).
How do those statistics from Davidson County compare to other parts of Tennessee?
Public Assistance Allocated As Of August 2024:
Last year was sadly one of the
deadliest years for tornadoes ever in Tennessee, and there were a record
11 disasters that caused more than billion dollars of damage each.
Davidson actually got less help from the federal government than some other counties that were hit even harder by tornadoes last year.
The state and county governments combined have gotten about $91 million so far to help with all the bad weather last year. Almost half of that has gone to Tipton to help them deal with the tornado from March 31, 2023. That included $17 million to rebuild a middle school in Covington destroyed by the tornado.
And 6,000 Tennessee families got just over $8 million in Individual Assistance. Half of that was from the December tornadoes.
These storms are just one piece of FEMA’s spending around the country, but have these expenses put any constraints on FEMA’s budget?
FEMA is in an odd position with its funding now that the pandemic is over.
The
Government Accountability Office reported a few weeks ago that FEMA greatly underestimated how much they would need to spend on the pandemic. When COVID was first declared a federal disaster, FEMA predicted it would spend $18 billion. It’s actually cost $172 billion.
But FEMA requested funding from Congress based on the inaccurate estimates, and now it’s at risk of not having enough money to respond to future disasters.
Last summer, FEMA had to pause all spending that was not “essential for lifesaving services” for two months because its funds were so low. It remains to be seen whether that will impact spending in Tennessee.
FEMA continues to approve new expenses related to COVID, even though the public health emergency ended on May 11, 2023. Officials are still reviewing grant applications submitted before a November 2023 deadline and allowed 67 other projects to submit applications after the deadline.