Press Releases

BATON ROUGE, LA – Louisiana received today a preliminary allocation through FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) of $100 million to help prevent future hurricane, flood and other damages in the state. These funds build on top of record investments made recently including Graves' recent announcement of over $2.5 billion in hurricane protection, flood control and other projects to help protect Louisiana.

"We can either make investments to protect our citizens or we can spend millions more picking up the debris of destroyed homes and businesses. This $100 million helps us to strengthen the flood protection and resiliency of our communities. We will continue working to build on our record investments to make Louisiana safer," Graves said.

Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funds are appropriated by Congress and allocated from the federal Disaster Relief Fund. Congress sets aside an additional percentage of total federal recovery funds for the purpose of preparing for and minimizing future disaster damages. Following the Flood of 2016, Louisiana received approximately $300 million in HMGP funding. In June 2021, $176 million had been allocated to Southwest Louisiana for Hurricanes Laura and Delta.

"As Governor Edwards has previously said, we need at least another $2.5 billion to recover. The next announcement of funding specifically related to Hurricane Ida must be significantly more to adequately fix our homes, energy infrastructure, and communities," Graves said.

Graves offered amendments to provide recovery funding in the recently-enacted appropriations bill.

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