Quantifying Differential Access to FEMA Disaster Funding and Showcasing Good Mitigation Strategies to Inform Local Decision Makers

Abstract

Socially vulnerable communities experience the adverse effects of a natural disaster to a greater degree, including more frequent impact, more significant impact, and longer recovery periods. Federal grant funding helps enable communities to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. This research first examines who has historically received funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA), Public Assistance (PA), and Individuals and Households Program (IHP) programs at the county-level in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis is utilized to identify relationships between social vulnerability factors (i.e., poverty, race, housing, and Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI)) and FEMA funding receipts. All mitigation projects with program fiscal year (FY) between 2005 and 2020 are included in the analysis; all funding allocations for PA and IHP correspond to Hurricanes Matthew (2016), Irma (2017), Michael (2018), and Florence (2018), respectively. Control variables include population density and hazard level (i.e., percent of properties in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA), proximity to coast, and total rainfall). Results indicate that both poverty rate and proportion of black residents had negative relationships to HMA and IHP funding; counties with higher proportions of black residents typically received less IHP funding than the value of damage assessed by FEMA during inspection when compared to counties with lower proportions of black residents; counties with a higher SoVI received more HMA funding for emergency management and property protection projects and less HMA funding for land acquisition projects when compared to counties with a lower SoVI. These results advance understanding of how inequities are being exacerbated by a combination of a lack of access to federal disaster funding and such funding being put towards continued development in high-risk areas thus hindering advancements in community resilience for socially vulnerable communities. The second stage of this research takes a closer look at a sample of 10 counties across Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina to assess mitigation expensing at the local level and how it affects community resilience while considering each county’s social vulnerability, hazard level, and mitigation and recovery plan quality. The results point to disproportionate amounts of HMA funding being allocated to emergency management projects, particularly in socially vulnerable communities, and counties with high mitigation plan quality not necessarily having good mitigation strategies implying that many counties may be simply going through the motions of mitigation planning to secure access to post-disaster funding. Within the sample, counties that showcased the best mitigation strategies emphasized land acquisition, private elevation of structures, building retrofit, and/or stormwater management projects over generators, warning systems, and/or mitigation plan updates. These results can assist local decision makers by showcasing good mitigation strategies and identifying which types of mitigation projects should be pursued given local community characteristics.