Texas will receive more than $1 billion in disaster mitigation money from the federal government, announced Gov. Greg Abbott at a luncheon in Rockport on Feb. 13. Half will be delivered soon; the other half was promised by Aug. 25, the anniversary of when Hurricane Harvey devastated the Gulf Coast. A portion of those funds will go to Rockport, Fulton, Aransas Pass and Port Aransas, the communities hardest hit by the Category 4 hurricane.
“What Washington, (D.C.), has shown with this is that they have not forgotten you,” Abbott said. “They have now allocated tens of billions to help you rebuild — to rebuild lives, to rebuild homes, to rebuild the entire community.”
The money comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for buying out flood-prone homes, building new seawalls and restoring sand dunes, Abbott said. It can also be used for storm surge-protection projects and retrofitting houses and buildings to withstand hurricane winds.
“We want to rebuild in ways that reduce the risk of future damages to property and to lives,” the governor said.
Checks can be written as quickly as applications are approved, Abbott continued. He urged communities to turn in applications to the Texas Division of Emergency Management as soon as possible for processing.
As for the $5 billion in Community Development Block Grants approved by Congress last fall, Abbott said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has now promised to fast-track the bureaucratic process. The money should be available by the end of March to help rebuild houses.
“Everybody’s house is once again going to be fully livable,” Abbott said.
Texas also stands to receive a share of the $89 billion in disaster relief approved by Congress the week before his visit to Rockport. That money is part of a federal budget agreement and will be used for other disasters as well, including two other hurricanes and the wildfires in California.
Abbott thanked Congress for the money but reminded local officials at the luncheon that this was was not the end of monetary relief.
“Don’t think for a minute that we are done with regard to our requests to Congress,” he said.