City Working to Get FEMA Reimbursement for Storm Expenses

Alexandria, La. (June 24, 2021) — City of Alexandria officials are in the process of filing to get roughly $7 million in reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the cost of recovery following Hurricanes Laura and Delta as well as the two ice storms in February.

“We have most of the invoices and receipts ready, and we are in the process of submitting the paperwork,” explained Finance Director David Johnson. “A lot of people think that FEMA will put a check in the mail 10 days after an event. It doesn’t work like that. The process can take months and even years.”

Johnson said the larger the disaster, the longer the process takes. Given the broad area effected by Hurricane Laura, Johnson said he expects it will be a slow process for Alexandria. “One should expect FEMA efforts to first go to more heavily impacted population centers, such as Lake Charles. It’ll be a little longer before they get to us. Actually, given the volume of disasters and recovery efforts FEMA is having to manage, it’s natural that it slows them down,” Johnson said.

“The amount of time that it takes to receive reimbursement from FEMA, or any other reimbursement program, is one reason that is vital to maintain a healthy cash reserve,” said Alexandria Mayor Jeffrey W. Hall. “In our case, we’re looking at roughly $7 million that we had to spend up front to deal with the disaster – and that’s just the reimbursable expenses, there are a lot of other expenses we incurred that we won’t get reimbursed for. We know storms will impact our area, so we have to make sure we have the proper reserves on hand to be able to respond immediately.”

Johnson said the primary expenses the city can be reimbursed for are related to electrical power restoration and tree damage. In the case of Hurricane Laura, the cost of dealing with tree debris and damage was nearly $4 million. Electrical distribution repair expenses totaled roughly $2.4 million.

The bulk of those dollars were spent on contractors who came and assisted in the recovery efforts. The costs include paying for the worker’s time and supplies as well as housing and food while they were in Alexandria. “On the tree removal side we had the contractor who did the removal and the required monitor who kept track of everything the contractor disposed of,” Johnson said. “For electric distribution, we had contractors as well as municipal partners who came to help with restoration.”

Johnson noted that each of the storms included electrical distribution damages. Hurricane Laura was the most at $2.4 million. Delta was roughly $600,000 while the ice storms came in around $345,000. “We expect to get reimbursed for the electrical expenses for the two hurricanes, but we’re not sure about the ice storm,” Johnson said. “Right now, the way the disaster declaration is set, they are only reimbursing for storm preparation costs. They haven’t approved reimbursement for electric restoration yet.”

“We are grateful to the officials with FEMA for all of their support,” Hall said. “FEMA workers have an incredibly difficult job dealing with government entities as well as with individual citizens. We appreciate everything they do to help our residents and our community recover when disaster strikes.”

Contact:
Jim Smilie
Communications
318.449.5038 (Office)
318.730.1683 (Cell)
jim.smilie@cityofalex.com