The $39 million in funding was awarded in July 2024 and was going to be used for three new basins that could collect water when, not if, Central flooded again.
“Essentially, the center of our city has a flood control problem,” said Evans. “This is an area of repetitive flood losses.”
Earlier this month, Evans traveled to Washington, D.C., where he met with Louisiana lawmakers, including Rep. Steve Scalise and Sen. John Kennedy, to try to get the grant’s cancellation reversed. And while he said he found a sympathetic audience, he was told ultimately the decision must come from the White House.
“It’s time to put the bomb away and pull out the scalpel,” said Evans. “Don’t blow a program up that’s very good. This is a very good program.”
“We need that support”
Officials from five other cities across the Southeast told CBS News they were counting on funds from the BRIC program to avoid a repeat of past storm destruction, including Conway, South Carolina, part of a county President Trump decisively won in 2024.
After the city experienced extensive flooding damage from successive hurricanes in 2015, 2016 and 2018, it took small steps to mitigate flooding by demolishing properties in its most flood-prone areas. A major step forward came when Conway was awarded a $2.1 million BRIC grant in 2021 to turn a new greenspace into a stormwater storage facility.
“We’ve plucked all the low-hanging fruit there is for flood resilience,” said City Administrator Adam Emrick, who added that Conway didn’t have the financial capacity to implement any larger projects without federal help. “The next step is always and has always been bigger construction projects to make us a better, more hardened infrastructure to flooding.”
The project was split up into two phases — an engineering and planning phase, and a construction phase. But when the Trump administration canceled the BRIC program in April, Conway had only completed 75% of the first phase, and they’d yet to break ground on the facility.
According to Emrick, the future of the facility is now in flux, as the city hasn’t identified a backup funding source. He said the city plans to move forward and complete the first phase without the federal funding to ensure the project is “shovel ready.” That way, in case something changes with grant funding, they’ll be ready to work.
Following its decision to cancel the BRIC program, FEMA said it would be “reaching out and coordinating” with applicants whose projects were already underway. Yet Conway hasn’t received any communication from the agency.
“We need that support from the federal government to make these projects happen so that our residents can continue to live in neighborhoods, and they don’t have to see this increase of potential storm water being in their homes ever again,” said June Wood, a spokesperson for the city.
The tiny town of Pollocksville — located in a rural North Carolina county that went heavily for President Trump in 2024 — is also facing uncertainty following the Trump administration’s decision to cancel BRIC grants. FEMA had officially awarded the community a $1 million grant in June 2024 to elevate and flood-proof six commercial properties along Main Street that had been damaged by Hurricane Florence in 2018 and left vacant ever since.
The administration’s decision to eliminate BRIC came four days before Pollocksville officials were scheduled to sign a contract with the construction company they had hired for the work. FEMA had said projects like Pollocksville’s that had completed the procurement process and were set to start construction could still receive funding, but Pollocksville Mayor Jay Bender said the town is still waiting to hear from the agency.
“All we’re trying to do is make our town a better place to live, work and play, and it just hurts when you’ve made plans and you’re doing things the right way and the money or the grant stops,” said Bender.
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