{"id":606298,"date":"2026-04-25T21:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T21:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/606298\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T21:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T21:26:07","slug":"federal-government-denies-hazard-mitigation-aid-to-state-after-historic-december-flooding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/606298\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal government denies hazard mitigation aid to state after historic December flooding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SEATTLE \u2014 The federal government has denied Washington a hazard mitigation grant that the state requested as part of its response to the historic December flooding.<\/p>\n<p>The federal government granted the state a major disaster declaration. That authorized individual assistance in 10 counties and public assistance in 23 counties.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/komonews.com\/news\/local\/fema-warns-washington-state-residents-of-scammers-may-file-disaster-aid-storm-flooding-victims-claims-using-stolen-social-security-number\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">RELATED | FEMA warns Washington: scammers may file disaster aid claims using stolen SSNs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But<a href=\"https:\/\/larsen.house.gov\/uploadedfiles\/hmgp_denial_letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> in this letter to Governor Bob Ferguson<\/a>, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) denies the state&#8217;s request for the hazard mitigation grant program statewide, that program would help the state build up necessary infrastructure, like flood levees.<\/p>\n<p>In the letter, though, Associate Administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery, Gregg Phillips, said that the grant is \u201cnot warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/larsen.house.gov\/news\/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4169\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">In a statement, U.S. Representative Rick Larson <\/a>(WA-02) calls the decision \u201cunacceptable,\u201d and said that \u201cthe disaster declaration helps people recover from the last flood, but hazard mitigation helps people survive the next flood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n<p>JOIN THE CONVERSATION (20)<\/p>\n<p>The state does have about 30 days to submit more supporting information and appeal the decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 The federal government has denied Washington a hazard mitigation grant that the state requested as part&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-606298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}