Cooper to fight for more recovery funding
By Steve Herring
Published in News on November 6, 2017 5:50 AM
Gov. Roy Cooper Friday said he will ask the General Assembly for additional Hurricane Matthew disaster recovery funding when the short legislative session convenes in 2018.
Efforts will continue as well to convince Congress to provide more funding, he said.
Cooper made his comments during a brief press conference following a ceremony dedicating a section of the new U.S. 70 Goldsboro Bypass in memory of the late Sen. John Kerr.
The ceremony was held in the Wayne County Courthouse historic Courtroom 1.
Cooper and Kerr served together in the General Assembly.
Wayne County is still hurting one year after Hurricane Matthew, Cooper said during the dedication.
If Kerr was around, he would be on the phone to Congress and with legislators, he said.
"Just thinking about this made me want to go and redouble our efforts because he would want us to do that," Cooper said.
"We are going to try every avenue we can to make sure that people who applied get funding, but right now the funding does not exist to cover everyone who has applied," Cooper said during the press conference.
Wayne County applied for $35 million through the Hurricane Matthew Hazard Mitigation Grant program. It received $9 million.
The $35 million was for 331 applications that included 24 for elevation, none of which were accepted, and 307 for acquisition, of which only 85 were accepted by the state.
Wayne County Manager George Wood has said that statewide there is only enough Federal Emergency Management Agency funding for 800 of 2,800 buyout/elevation applications, Wood said.
The federal government has shortchanged the state by $200 million, he said.
However, a FEMA spokesman said that is incorrect and that it has done all it is supposed to do for North Carolina in regards to Hurricane Matthew.
"First, I am not sure about the figure," Cooper said. "But I do know that it is short under the current formula. So we are trying several avenues.
"We are trying to get Congress to change the formula so that help can occur to eastern North Carolina."
Cooper said his administration is fighting every day for additional funds to help repair infrastructure, to help with housing and mitigation.
There is still not enough money that has been appropriated to fill all of the needs that have been documented, he said.
"We will be presenting a budget to the General Assembly as they go back into the short session because I think there needs to be significant state funding, and we are pushing our congressional delegation to provide more federal funding and to try to piggyback on funding that is going to be occurring for Texas, and for Florida and for Puerto Rico," he said.
"What we have to remember is there are still victims from Hurricane Matthew who are suffering one year later here in North Carolina."
Cooper said he wants to make sure North Carolina is part of that process.
"We are going to continue to urge our members of Congress in a bipartisan way to provide more help from the federal government," he said. "We are also trying to get additional appropriations from Congress, and we are going to try to get the state legislature to provide additional funding as well."