(The Center Square) – FEMA, in the 11th hour of a two-week deadline, says it will comply with an order to reinstate $200 million in disaster prevention projects in North Carolina.
The litigation is tied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency canceling the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. The agency led by interim Administrator Karen Evans, a division of the Department of Homeland Security shifting to the leadership of former U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, gave its response to U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Richard Stearns on Friday.
Another report is due to Stearns this week, part of his instruction for 14- and 21-day status updates. The case is known as State of Washington, et. al. v. Federal Emergency Management Agency and has already been won by the plaintiffs.
FEMA said money would be delivered in the coming months, according to a release from North Carolina’s first-term Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson.
“This is good news – but the money hasn’t arrived yet, so we’re not done,” Jackson said. “Our towns and cities are waiting for the dollars they were promised to get ready for the next storm, and we won’t stand down until those funds arrive.”
The money is within the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities disaster mitigation program, often called BRIC.
Examples of the cities and projects are Salisbury, a $22.5 million relocation of a pump station on the Yadkin River; Hillsborough, a $7 million project to relocate a pump station out of a flood plain; and Gastonia, a $5.9 million project to restore the banks of the Duharts Creek to prevent floodwater damage.
In addition to Washington and North Carolina, other state attorneys general a part of the filing Tuesday included Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin; the district attorney in the District of Columbia; and governors in Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
