U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan recently announced additional $109 million in disaster recovery aid to the City of Moore, Oklahoma and to the State of Oklahoma to help local communities recover from a devastating spate of storms, including a powerful tornado that struck Moore last May. These grants are provided through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program to support long-term disaster recovery efforts in areas with the greatest extent of ‘unmet need.’
The City of Moore will receive an additional $25.9 million to supplement other forms of public and private disaster aid following May’s powerful EF5 tornado with its winds exceeding 200 miles per hour. In addition, the State of Oklahoma will receive $83.1 million to support local recovery efforts following these powerful storms that occurred last May and June. The State’s funds may also support long-term resilient recovery associated with the Freedom and Noble fires in 2012 and six other major disasters declared in Oklahoma between 2011 and 2013.
To date, HUD has invested nearly $146 million to support long-term disaster recovery in some of Oklahoma
“The scale of last year’s storms and the devastating tornado in Moore made it clear to us that we needed to do more to support recovery in Oklahoma,” says Donovan. “HUD will stand with state and local leaders as they work to rebuild their communities and help those people and places that need this support the most.”
The Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, signed into law by President Obama on January 29, 2013, included $15.2 billion in CDBG-Disaster Recovery funding. E. HUD’s CDBG-Disaster Recovery grants are intended to confront housing, business and infrastructure needs beyond those addressed by other forms of public and private assistance. Using a combination of data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA), HUD identified those states and local requiring the greatest assistance to recover in a resilient way from disasters in 2013.
HUD has designated Cleveland and Creek counties as “Most Impacted and Distressed” due to the May 2013 tornadoes and the 2012 fires such that 80 percent of the funds need to be spent in those counties. Because 100 percent of the allocations to Moore will be spent in Cleveland County, HUD has determined that 69 percent of the state’s combined first and second round allocation be targeted at Cleveland and Creek counties. Up to 31 percent of the funds may address needs elsewhere in the state that it can demonstrate were “most impacted and distressed” by these disasters or any of the six other federally declared disasters in Oklahoma in 2011, 2012, or 2013.
For more information, visit www.hud.gov.
