Tuscaloosa is set to receive a $16.6 million federal grant to assist recovery from the April 27 tornadoes.
The storm aid is part of a $55 million statewide allocation by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD annually allocates funds to aid communities affected by presidentially declared disasters.
Meredith Lynch, public relations coordinator for Tuscaloosa, said a November 2011 law provided HUD with $400 million for Community Development Block Grants to help assist communities specifically affected by natural disasters.
“The $16.6 million appropriation to the City of Tuscaloosa was decided by a formula that calculated the cost of unmet needs in Tuscaloosa since the storms of April 2011,” Lynch said.
U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham), who announced the grant on Jan. 20, said the grant money is intended for housing and infrastructure, economic development and emergency preparedness.
“These cities are in need of funding for economic development and infrastructure renovation as a result of the April tornadoes,” Sewell said in a Tuscaloosa News article last week. “Alabamians are still in desperate need of relief and this funding will assist in their rebuilding and recovery efforts.”
Decisions have yet to be made regarding the exact distribution of the funds, but Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox will present a recommendation to the City Council in March, Lynch said.
In addition to housing, infrastructure and economic development, the HUD grant can be used for social services, planning and administrative uses.
“Mayor Maddox has recognized three primary areas where the funding would be allocated in the tornado recovery zones: housing, infrastructure and leveraging funds to match other federal and social service agency grants,” Lynch said.
April’s storms, which killed 52 people in Tuscaloosa County, damaged or destroyed more than 500 business and over 5,000 homes.
The HUD grant is welcomed relief aid, as the City of Tuscaloosa has estimated there are still $200 million in unmet needs following the disaster.
“This allocation is a tremendous step in our recovery,” Lynch said. “We are hopeful to receive more government funding to help renew and rebuild the six miles across our city that was damaged or destroyed by the tornado.”
Maddox said the grant was a giant step forward in the recovery process but added that it must be measured by the fact that the city has $250 million of unmet needs.
“We still have a very long journey ahead of us with very little hopes of sustained funding,” Maddox said. “We have the next three years to spend it, so these projects will not happen all at once. In many ways, there’s going to be things developing over the next year or two with grants, so we’ll make sure we keep some in advance so when those grant opportunities come we can use those dollars to match.”
Tuscaloosa was granted the largest portion of the $55 million allocation, with $7.8 million going to Jefferson County and $6.4 million for the city of Birmingham.
The remaining funds will be distributed to Alabama counties that also sustained damage.
“The state is required to spend 80 percent of this amount in DeKalb, Tuscaloosa, Marion and Jefferson counties,” Lynch said.
