The plans, which are required by the federal government to access certain grants after a natural disaster, are laborious to assemble — especially for rural counties.
Flooding in downtown Livingston on May 2. Thousands fled their southeast Texas homes as heavy rains saturated land in multiple counties.— a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.Texas counties do not have a hazard mitigation plan, federal data shows, cutting off access to billions in non-emergency grants to help rebuild infrastructure after natural disasters.
This will be Midland County’s first hazard mitigation plan, county officials said. The county received an $88,000 grant to write its plan, work that is expected to take up to two years. In this case, Murphy said, a lack of funding prevented the work from being done. However, just this week, the county agreed to pay a consulting firm $100,000 to complete its plan.
It takes time and money to update a plan, which demands granular details, such as the cost of fuel to fight a wildfire. “$100,000 is a lot of money out of my budget for a rural area,” Murphy said. “I also cover Trinity County with my hazard mitigation plan. So who’s going to pay? I can’t split it 50/50 because my population is a whole lot bigger than theirs is.”The county tax base just doesn’t cover everything it needs to, Murphy said.
Both entities paid $10,000 each at the start of the process to update the plan and are now seeking additional grant funding for the other Angelina County entities. Emergency management coordinator Ricky Connor said the grant process takes time and is awaiting both state and federal approval.
Environment State Government Longview Lufkin Angelina County Ector County Midland County Polk County Trinity County Permian Basin Texas Legislature
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