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Asheville staff outline FEMA public-assistance process, warn about reimbursement risks
Summary
City staff and Hagerty Consulting briefed City Council on the scope of damage, project triage and the FEMA Public Assistance reimbursement process, urging careful documentation before reconstruction to protect federal funding.
City officials and consultants told the Asheville City Council Jan. 23 that the city has completed a broad damage inventory and is preparing detailed project assessments to support FEMA Public Assistance (PA) reimbursement, but warned that work done before FEMA agreement risks not being reimbursed.
The update, delivered by Jay Dundas, capital management director, and Madeleine Stoddard, a recovery manager with Hagerty Consulting, laid out the FEMA PA process and a project triage that separates less-complex repairs the city can advance quickly from complex projects that require formal FEMA scoping and may trigger environmental or historic-preservation requirements.
The city has inventoried hundreds of damage records across streets, parks, greenways, water facilities and cultural venues and has grouped work into subteams for public works, water, parks, greenways and facilities, Dundas said. Madeleine Stoddard warned that "FEMA public assistance is ... designed as a reimbursement program," and that "anything that is excluded from…
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