Overview
- Cave City’s requests for broader FEMA recovery aid were denied, with federal help limited to individual home repairs after the March tornadoes, Mayor Jonas Anderson said.
- Local recovery costs are about $300,000 — roughly 15% of the city’s annual budget — as public cleanup and infrastructure repairs lack federal reimbursement.
- After an initial denial, Governor Sarah Sanders secured a disaster declaration, and the state set a program that assigns 65% of public repair costs to cities and counties and 35% to the state.
- Nationally, FEMA has slowed declarations and payments, with 32 disaster declarations approved so far this year versus an average of more than 60 annually in 2015–2024, and a backlog of about a dozen requests.
- FEMA says it deferred $11 billion tied to pandemic projects to preserve the disaster fund, which held more than $2 billion at September’s end, as Congress has yet to move new funding during a prolonged shutdown; communities are turning to states, private fundraising, and volunteers, with some — like Canton, N.C. — still waiting on expected federal dollars.