Institutional and commercial facilities continue to feel the impact of natural disasters — including hurricanes, coastal flooding and wildfires — which have become more frequent, powerful and costly in recent years. As maintenance and engineering managers pursue funding to complete projects and renovations designed to enhance the resilience of equipment, assets and operations, some financial support is coming from the federal government.
The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) recently announced the selections for nearly $3 billion in climate resilience funding through two competitive grant programs to help facilities and communities across the nation enhance climate and disaster resilience.
The nationwide funding includes $1.8 billion for critical resilience projects funded by the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) national competition and $642 million for flood mitigation assistance community-scale, flood-mitigation projects.
The top five primary hazard sources of the projects selected in the national competition include flooding, infrastructure failure, wildfire, drought, and dam or levee break hazards.
For example, in FEMA Region 6, this funding includes nine BRIC national competition selections for $120.5 million and 68 communitywide selections for $333.1 million in flood-mitigation assistance.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.
