FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Dana Kuhnline, Program Director at ReImagine Appalachia, (304) 825-3262, [email protected]
APPALACHIA – Community leaders and advocates from across Appalachia are urging the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to keep up the progress on shaping and advancing the bipartisan Fixing Emergency Management for Americans (FEMA) Act (HR 4699). The legislation is due for a markup tomorrow – September 3 – and, today, 29 groups and leaders added their support to the bill and made recommendations to Congress on how to best strengthen its provisions to enhance disaster response, relief, and resilience amid the string of devastating extreme weather disasters hitting Appalachia in recent years. Many of the letter’s recommendations are rooted in the Flood Resilience Platform for Appalachia released last year.
You can read the letter sent to Congress today here.
Signatories of the letter praised provisions of the FEMA Act of 2025 that:
- Make assistance more accessible through:
- A Universal Disaster application;
- Support for those with no fixed address;
- Lengthening the timelines during which FEMA can provide support
- Transition from a reimbursement-based model to a grant-based model for FEMA Public Assistance;
- Make FEMA’s debris removal process more responsible and efficient;
- Enhance transparency through the creation of a public assistance dashboard with updates on assistance applications, project approvals, cost estimates, and more.
Moreover, these advocates from Appalachian communities pressed Congress to go a step further and use the markup process to fill other gaps in the current disaster response and relief process, including:
- Expanding use of FEMA dollars for making permanent private road and bridge repairs that restore residential access;
- Eliminating or reducing Public Assistance matching requirements for economically distressed communities;
- Provide FEMA money to more quickly repair homes occupied by renters, especially in rural areas or in areas with limited housing stock.
- Including language to ensure that disaster mitigation and recovery work prioritizes safe workplaces, a living wage, and opportunities for local workers.
The full list of recommendations and further context is available in the letter here.
Community members and advocates released the following statements about the urgent need to strengthen disaster response and relief efforts and the FEMA Act of 2025:
“Our property was flooded during the ’22 flood; it came an inch from getting into our house. We lost all of our vehicles and HVAC during the flood, which have now been replaced. Our bridge was also damaged during the flood and remains unusable to this day. FEMA wanted us to first file with our homeowners’ insurance and flood insurance, but neither provided funds to repair the bridge since their policies don’t cover bridges. Then FEMA provided us with the option to file for SBA loans to see our bridge fixed, but it is too expensive a repair. Thankfully, our neighbor’s property is connected to ours, and their bridge remained intact, so we’ve had a way to remain in our home. But when the next flood comes, there’s no guarantee that the neighbor’s bridge will stay standing — then what will we do? FEMA programs are meant to make our homes habitable again, you can’t live in a home that doesn’t have road access.”
– Alisa Mullins, Myra, KY
“As we were developing our federal policy platform for Appalachian flood resilience, we heard over and over again that FEMA public assistance dollars are difficult to access because 1) it is difficult for under-resourced communities who have just been struck by a devastating disaster to front the funds for clean-up and 2) it is hard to provide a local funding match. The FEMA Act of 2025 changes Public Assistance to a grants process, eliminating the challenge of reimbursement – this is a very welcome improvement. And we hope Congress will further consider reducing local match requirements for economically disadvantaged communities.” – –Rebecca Shelton, Director of Policy, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center
“This bill has the potential to create a lot of jobs – from mitigation work to help prevent the worst impacts of flooding to rebuilding our towns after disasters strike. To ensure that these new jobs are good jobs for workers in our hard hit communities, the bill should include policies to ensure high safety standards and a prevailing wage.”
-Dana Kuhnline, Program Director, ReImagine Appalachia
“Following years of consistent flooding across Appalachia — including Hurricane Helene in 2024 — our communities know that FEMA needs major reforms to make sure disaster aid is being spent efficiently in the areas that need federal support the most. The FEMA Act’s current support for economically distressed and rural communities is a boon for Appalachian communities building pre-disaster resilience and recovering after a disaster. But we know disaster recovery is expensive, and we need Congress to do more to accommodate small local budgets with higher federal cost shares to make recovery and resilience projects possible.”
-Kevin Zedack, Government Affairs Specialist, Appalachian Voices