The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced Tuesday that it was awarding $1.39 billion in Emergency Relief funds to help 42 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for repairs to roads and bridges damaged by storms, floods, wildfires and other events.
The award is the largest is emergency relief fund since 2011.
“Emergency relief funding is critical to restoring vital transportation links damaged by severe weather and other unexpected events that are heavily relied upon by communities for daily travel,” Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Stephanie Pollack said.
The new programs in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act — including the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) program — will promote the use of materials and techniques that will ensure American highways are more prepared to withstand future weather events and natural disasters, Pollack said.
FHWA’s Emergency Relief program compliments the IIJA by helping agencies identify and implement measures that make infrastructure projects more resilient. The program provides reimbursement funding to states, territories, federal land management agencies and tribal governments to reconstruct, restore or repair federally aided or federally owned transportation facilities after a natural disaster or catastrophic failure. The funding will help nearly 200 agencies recover from emergency events like Hurricanes Irma and Maria, storms and flooding in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, California, Alabama and Kentucky and others.
The allocations include $25,688,326 for Arizona to cover damages due to wildfires, Tropical Storm Lorena and Hurricane Rosa, and other events dating back to 2017; $625,008,447 for California to cover damages from wildfires, storms and earthquakes dating back to 2016; and $269,619 for Michigan to address damages due to widespread flooding in Lake County Michigan in 2019.