FEMA director, Begich visit with Mat-Su officials

PALMER — There were probably many reasons behind Sen. Mark Begich’s decision to bring Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate to the Mat-Su Borough. Maybe the easiest summation of his reasons came from Mat-Su Borough Manager John Moosey Friday.

“We’ve had a lot of practice on natural disasters,” Moosey said.

Over the course of an hour, Moosey, borough staff and city of Palmer officials talked to Begich and Fugate about sticking points they’ve had dealing with FEMA on things like funding for recovery from the 2012 flooding and flood plain mapping.

Mat-Su Borough Emergency Manager Casey Cook brought up the three-year timeframe that he’s been told borough projects need to meet. He said construction seasons have pushed a lot of the projects into 2015 and beyond, putting them outside of that timeframe.

Fugate said he was unaware of a three-year deadline.

“We’re still doing work on Katrina, and that’s a hell of a lot longer than three years,” he said.

The state plays a role in the process, Cook told them, and the deadline could be on that end.

“This is something we need to run to ground,” Fugate said.

Begich agreed.

“Let us help to kick that down. That’s not acceptable,” the senator said.

Cook also asked why FEMA didn’t provide additional assistance to homeowners through its individual assistance program. Fugate said the program was never intended to take the place of flood insurance.

The program is intended to pay for recoveries that the state is incapable of handling, usually because there are just too many homes needing assistance. Alaska, though, has the distinction of having the smallest number of homes for which that kind of assistance was provided, but the situation happened to involve a remote village for which there was just no other solution.

He said FEMA programs don’t make people whole and don’t build homes. There are other agencies that do, though, and Fugate said FEMA intends to help people connect to those other agencies.

As for the flood mapping, borough officials told Fugate about a home that was 65 feet above a river atop a bluff. Flood maps somehow had that home in the flood plain, which was clearly in error.

“We are dealing with so many people who are paying for flood insurance that have no possibility of ever flooding,” said Alex Strawn, the borough’s development services manager.

Fugate said the borough can work to get those homes out of the floodplain, but should be ready for the flipside — changing maps often bring people into the floodplain who weren’t there before.

Begich promised to look at some possible legislative fixes.

“This has been a problem over and over again in Alaska, these mapping challenges,” Begich said.

Fugate said that although no one wants to see the next disaster happen, the recovery process should be smoother the next time.

Things like changes to FEMA programs that allow funding for rebuilding projects based on estimates of projects rather than their actual costs should help, he said.

Under the old program, Fugate said, FEMA was involved in the project. He said the new program will authorize funding based on a cost estimate and then FEMA is done with it.

“If you get savings in there we don’t ask for that money back,” Fugate said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.