State and federal disaster managers took a road trip on the week of August 19 to visit areas of central and eastern Montana prone to natural disasters that also face challenges rebuilding after fire or flood hits.
During their visit to Roundup, Musselshell County Emergency Services Director Justin Russell showed off a field on its way to becoming a shared community space.
“Again, it’s not a lot to look at right now, but compared to what it was and what its planned features are gonna do, I mean, this is huge,” Russell said.
Roundup is right by the Musselshell River—the homes that sat on this field, in the floodplain, were hit by flooding year after year before their owners sold them to the county.
Now, Russell says the county is turning the properties into a public recreation area with help from FEMA funding.
“It really illustrates what impact your guys’ programs actually can have for communities like us,” Russell said.
Representatives with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state Disaster and Emergency Services are meeting with local emergency managers dealing with flood and fire. Counties in the region say their staffs are often too small to do the heavy lifting federal grant applications require.
FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, or BRIC, is aimed at boosting climate resilience and helping communities reduce their risk of disasters, but it only applies to certain activities, and there’s a lot of red tape applicants need to navigate to qualify.
A new analysis from Montana think tank, Headwaters Economics, looks at BRIC money four years down the line and finds, nationwide, counties with fewer resources and staff received 19 times less BRIC funding than high-capacity counties.
“Some of the really kind of basic things like, ‘How are we gonna write this application?’ ‘Who will do the work?’ and ‘Where will the money come from to actually pay someone to do that work?’ are big open questions,” said Headwaters Economics analyst, Kris Smith.
State and FEMA representatives on the trip say they’re working to spread awareness about technical assistance available to help communities through the process, but Smith says more help is needed.
Russell says he’s proud of what the county has achieved despite their small staff: “It’s been, and I use the word fun quite a bit, but I like the challenge.”
