Flood Mitigation Assistance Fiscal Year 2021 Subapplication Status

Summary of Subapplications

Selected Subapplications

Highlights of the Subapplications

Subapplication Status by State

FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant programs provide funding to protect life and property from future natural disasters. Flood Mitigation Assistance is a competitive annual grant program that provides funding to states, tribal, territorial and local governments.

Grant funding from Flood Mitigation Assistance can be used to reduce or eliminate the risk of repetitive flood damage to buildings insured under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The focus is on mitigating Severe Repetitive Loss and Repetitive Loss properties that have incurred multiple flood losses and NFIP claim payments. In addition, funded projects will reduce flood risk in communities disproportionately impacted by flooding.

FEMA made $1.16 billion available for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) and Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grant programs. In 2021 FEMA conducted two rounds of selections for both programs. The breakdown of available funding for fiscal year 2021 includes $1 billion for BRIC and $160 million for Flood Mitigation Assistance.

In total, FEMA received 982 subapplications requesting an estimated $4.7 billion in Flood Mitigation Assistance and BRIC grant funding.

• For BRIC, every state and territory, including 55 tribes, submitted 788 subapplications requesting $4.16 billion in federal cost share funding.
• For Flood Mitigation Assistance, 25 states submitted 194 subapplications requesting $534 million in federal cost share funding.

More information about the selections can be viewed on this page.

Flood Mitigation Assistance received 194 subapplications for this grant cycle.

FEMA received requests for nearly $534 million in federal cost share funding, which is an increase of 34% from the $399 million for Fiscal Year 2020. The total proposed project costs received exceeded $649 million.

In total, 25 states applied for Flood Mitigation Assistance grant funding. Three states submitted projects with $50 million or more in federal share.

The state of Louisiana submitted multiple subapplications requesting over $100 million in federal cost share funding, which was more than 60% of the funds available in this grant cycle.

Thirty-one states and territories did not submit subapplications. No tribes submitted subapplications for Flood Mitigation Assistance.

Flood Mitigation Assistance received over 1,500 Individual Property Mitigation submissions, especially in socially vulnerable communities. This was a nearly 50% increase from the 1,088 applications submitted in the previous year.

In addition, the $324 million in federal share requested for these projects in Fiscal Year 2021 is much higher than the $228 million requested in 2020. The socially vulnerable communities were identified using the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.

Uses of Flood Mitigation Assistance	Number of Subapplications Submitted	Amount of Funding Requested
Individual Property Mitigation Projects	126	$324 million
Community Flood Mitigation	21	$169 million
Project Scoping	18	$6.9 million
Technical Assistance/Flood Hazard Planning	5	$270,000
Management Costs	24	$33.4 million
Totals	194	$533.57 million

Various types of projects are eligible for Flood Mitigation Assistance grants. The lists below reflect the top five project types by federal cost share requested and number of subapplications (not including management costs).

1. Elevation = $64.5 million
2. Flood Control = $47.4 million
3. Acquisitions = $27 million
4. Project Scoping (Engineering, Environmental, Feasibility, and/or Benefit-Cost Analysis) = $5.6 million
5. Mitigation Reconstruction = $1.6 million

1. Elevation = 24 subapplications
2. Acquisitions = 13 subapplications
3. Project Scoping (Engineering, Environmental, Feasibility, and/or Benefit-Cost Analysis) = 13 subapplications
4. Flood Control = 6 subapplications
5. Mitigation Reconstruction = 2 subapplications

The program saw the highest number of subapplications received to date requesting funding to mitigate Severe Repetitive Loss (SRL) and Repetitive Loss (RL) properties. This amounted to a 28% increase in projects selected to mitigate these type of properties.

The selected projects benefit participating National Flood Insurance Program communities and NFIP insured property owners to adapt to increased flood risk from a changing climate and reduce future flood risk.

• Louisiana and Texas each received greater than $50 million in eligible federal share, followed by New Jersey at $21 million.
• The most popular subapplication type are elevation projects, followed by localized flood control projects, and acquisition projects.
• Other Flood Mitigation Assistance project selection data includes:
  • Thirty-nine subapplications totaling over $93 million in federal cost share funding were selected to mitigate 392 properties of which 285 Severe Repetitive Loss and Repetitive Loss NFIP-insured properties.
  • Six subapplications totaling over $47 million in federal cost share were selected for community flood mitigation projects, reducing flood risk for nearly 3,000 NFIP-insured buildings in these participating communities:
    • Beaumont, Texas - These projects include detention ponds and drainage projects in Jefferson County Drainage District.
    • Baton Rouge, Louisiana – To improve drainage using culverts around the Louisiana State University Lakes community.
    • Three Forks, Montana – A communitywide mitigation project will expand culvert and storage pond capacity to mitigate flooding, protect nearly 1,000 structures from flooding, and yield multiple ancillary benefits including wildfire and drought.
    • Atlantic City, New Jersey – A series of pump stations and bulkheads will reduce frequent flooding and improve access for 24 million visitors of Atlantic City annually, the 38,000 city residents and the thousands of people who work in the city. Residents benefiting from the project represent some of the highest socially vulnerable populations in the county based on American Community Census Survey data measuring factors including socioeconomic status, disability, minority status, and both housing and transportation factors.

• Fifteen Project Scoping selections to help communities plan, design, and assess the technical feasibility of flood mitigation projects, conduct flood control studies, conduct outreach, conceptual design, and cost-benefit analyses. These communities include:
  • Bridgeport, Connecticut
  • New Orleans, Louisiana
  • Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
  • Atlantic City, New Jersey
  • Somers Pointy, New Jersey
  • Cornwall, New York
  • New York City, New York
  • Village of Sea Cliff, New York
  • West Pittston Borough, Pennsylvania
  • Greenville, South Carolina
  • Oconee County South Carolina
  • Athens City, Texas
  • Jefferson County, Texas
  • Henrico County, Virginia

• Three Technical Assistance projects for the states of New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania.
• One Flood Mitigation Plan update for Calvert County, Maryland.

The table shows each subapplication status by state. For this grant cycle, FEMA made two announcements. The first round of selections announced on May 19 included seven subapplications for further review for individual property mitigation. These represented more than $19 million in federal share. Of the 102 properties included in those subapplications, 86 are Severe Repetitive Loss or Repetitive Loss properties at greatest risk of flood damage.

For Fiscal Year 2021, most of the Flood Mitigation Assistance funding goes towards elevation, acquisitions, and mitigation reconstruction of repetitively flood-damaged buildings insured by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

View further explanation of the status descriptions.