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MISSOURI DIVISION |
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEPTEMBER 2000 POST EARTHQUAKE HIGHWAY RESPONSE AND RECOVERY SEMINAR HELD IN ST. LOUIS MISSOURI
FUNDING THE RESPONSE & RECOVERY BY DAN BEMENT
MR. MOSELEY: Next is Dan Bement who is the Chief of Operations and Planning for FEMA Region 5, in Chicago. He has a BS degree from Western Michigan and a master's in political science. He's a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the US Army Reserve and he has been the federal coordinating officer for several disasters.
MR. BEMENT: Well, thank you very much. I would also like to give my compliments to planners of this conference. Having done several of these myself, I know the kind of effort it takes to bring it all together. It's extensive.
I've enjoyed the various speakers and presentations. I thought that last night's dinner presentation was pretty strong and dynamic. It put things in perspective about our purpose in life, and that's people. We're all working for the American public and the citizens of the country.
I'd like to take just a few minutes to talk about FEMA funding. FEMA funding comes subsequent to a presidential disaster declaration. Nothing is available until the president declares a major disaster emergency declaration. Once that happens, FEMA has the authority to provide some assistance to the public, state, or to the local governments under the Presidential Disaster Act, 93288. We will provide 75 percent of the authorized cost of disaster response, and the state and locals provide 25 percent. So, it's a 75-25 cost sharing program.
There are unique situations when cost sharing can be adjusted upward for the federal share. I've seen it as high as 90 percent with the state and local share being 10 percent.
My staff issues and coordinates mission assignments. In disasters I have the individual assistance program that is the program that goes into county, city, and state governments. I have the DCO, defense-coordinating officer (the military official specifically designated to orchestrate DOD support). So it's a large staff providing much assistance.
We have put in place pre-scripted mission assignments with the Corps of Engineers. We have been working on these for the last couple of years and have been refining them. We would like to extend their use to the other ESFs and include federal auditing. Some examples of mission assignment to the Corps of Engineers, ESF-3, are for providing ice and water, emergency power, temporary housing, and debris removal. Another one is ESF-8, health and human services.
At the very beginning of a disaster declaration, we try to anticipate the kinds of ESFs or services we need. Once that is done, we issue an initial mission assignment for each for $25,000 and put them on standby. If we activate them, we may add more funds on some to fully support the assignment. Types of things could include the Disaster Medical Assistance Team, DMAT, the Disaster Mortuary Team, DMORT, or ESF-9, Urban Search and Rescue...going in with teams with dogs to save their lives or extricate the body.
A big program we have is providing assistance to the actual victim. It is not FEMA´s responsibility to make victims whole. We just cannot do that; it's too expensive. We view our funds as a supplement to insurance or other aid. Where individual households have insurance, we expect the insurance to cover their fair share of the cost and anything supplemental to the insurance is something we would be looking at. In the event we pay monies to a household early on in the disaster and they eventually get insurance reimbursement, they could owe us some money back.
A large part of the individual assistance program is the housing program. Within the housing program we have rental assistance. We need to determine if victims are renters or homeowners. If they're renting and qualified, we can provide up to one month of rental costs covering the time they cannot get back into damaged units. Homeowners can have up to three months of expenses while their houses are being restored. When a home has to be damaged and yet still habitable, the household is eligible for up to $10,000 for making repairs. Not many people get this high amount. Those repairs need to be made within 30 days and the homeowner needs to commit to remaining in the house.
Mortgage and rental assistance applies when a homeowner loses a significant amount of monthly income and can´t make his mortgage or rental payment. Perhaps their job was lost as a result of the disaster and they lost a significant amount of income. Their house has to be damaged from the disaster and not inhabitable. If there is too much damage to the house, they will be living in a hotel or someplace. But under the mortgage and rental assistance program, people can get re-certified for longer periods of time. Usually they can get increases in time for one to three month increments totaling up no more than 18 months. We will only reimburse for lodging and they must have receipts showing they paid. We don´t pay for food, telephone calls and that sort of stuff. The lodging expense reimbursement is a program that used to be called the transient program.
Small Business Administration, SBA, is a source where a homeowner could get a loan to rebuild or repair. These are low cost loans and SBA works very closely with us during a disaster.
A program, we fund through the state is called individuals family grant, IFG. Currently the limit is $13,900. I might add not many people incur that kind of expense. It´s usually a lot less. The average cost turns out to be more like $3,000. So with levels of actual expenses like this, we're able to satisfy much of the emergency needs.
Under the individual family grant, we cover real property expenses, personal property expenses, transportation expenses, medical and dental expenses, and funeral expenses.
Public assistance is the next program we have. It sounds like a citizens program again, but it´s not. This program extends to municipal governments...cities, counties, and the state. This is a grant program involving such things as (1) debris clearance primarily by the Corps of Engineers, (2) emergency measures trying to protect property and save lives or public safety, (3) repair to roads and bridges, (4) water control facilities,(5) water sanitation facilities, (6) water purification plants, (7) buildings and equipment, (8) parks and recreation and other municipally owned property, and (9)utility services.
When you have a lot of utilities down, it can be quite interesting at times. This is especially true when you are involved with a commercial nuclear reactor plant that has been shut down. When will it come back up and under what conditions?
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