As Washington state residents take stock of widespread water damage, officials say the recent succession of storms highlights why proactive work to protect communities from flooding is so essential. But the Trump administration has delayed or attempted to cut federal funding for some of those projects, leaving a slate of the state’s major initiatives in limbo.
Washington had secured tens of millions of dollars in federal grants for projects to elevate houses, move people away from flood-prone areas and protect homes with new levees, among other measures.
But earlier this year, the Trump administration attempted to cancel roughly $182 million in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for natural hazard mitigation projects in the state, prompting a court battle. And according to Tim Cook, Washington’s state hazard mitigation officer, another $31 million in disaster prevention grants have for months been awaiting approval from Kristi Noem, the U.S. secretary of homeland security, per a department policy she implemented this summer.
The recent atmospheric river storms have forced at least 1,300 rescues and assisted evacuations, killed one person and flooded thousands of homes.
Such storms transport moisture from Pacific waters in the tropics and can look like fire hoses on weather radar systems. In the future, such events are expected to cause more severe flooding in Washington as global warming causes more precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow and makes rainfall more intense.
The federal funding for the state that has been held up under the Trump administration might not have made an immediate difference during this month’s storms, given the work’s long timeframe, but the point is to protect communities from future deluges, Washington officials say.
“This event — and the one coming whenever in the future — reinforces the importance of investing in the pre-disaster mitigation efforts to reduce damages. If folks on the ground weren’t believers before about the need to do pre-disaster mitigation, they certainly are now,” Cook said. He added that every dollar invested in such programs saves six, according to the National Institute of Building Sciences.
In response to a request for comment, a White House official referred NBC News to the Department of Homeland Security.
A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that it is "committed to ensuring FEMA delivers for the American people."
"To ensure every recovery dollar is used as effectively as possible, Secretary Noem directed that grant and contract award expenditures be reviewed and approved before funds are obligated," the statement said.
The Trump administration announced in April that it planned to end a FEMA program that supports state and local resilience projects across the country.
"FEMA is ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program," the agency said in a news release that is no longer available on its website, calling the program "wasteful” and “politicized.”
Washington and more than 20 other states sued to challenge the move. The states won a summary judgment last week, but the money has not been delivered.
DHS argued in court that it had not canceled the BRIC program, but the judge disagreed. The department made the same claim in its statement to NBC News.
“DHS has not terminated BRIC. Any suggestion to the contrary is a lie," it said.
While this legal battle has played out, projects that would have moved forward have been on hold.
In Washington state, the program had allocated $182 million for 27 ongoing projects, according to a court filing. A list of those projects, which Cook provided to NBC News, shows that many are related to proactive flood mitigation work.
On Washington’s coast, for example, BRIC funding would have helped pay for miles of earthen levees, concrete floodwalls and raised roadways to protect the communities of Hoquiam and Aberdeen. In anticipation of that federal funding — nearly $98 million for the flood-prevention systems in the two communities — state and local governments had already invested more than $31 million into design, permit and pre-construction work, according to court filings.
Brian Shay, Hoquiam’s city administrator, said the town’s economic future could hinge on completion of the levee system.
“We’ve been economically challenged for so long. People have been really counting on this, and so there’s been a lot of worry and confusion,” Shay said.
The project could save residents about $5 million per year in construction and insurance costs, according to court filings.
The battle over BRIC funding also delayed a plan led by Pierce County, near Tacoma, to buy a flood-prone mobile home park and relocate residents out of the high-risk area. During the recent storms, floodwaters reached some structures in that park, according to Amanda Smith, a spokesperson for the county’s planning and public works department. The county is still assessing how much damage was done.
“The project remains a priority,” Smith said, but added that it likely won’t be complete by the end of 2027 as planned because of the BRIC funding issues.
The city of Orting, about 30 miles south of Seattle, also saw its BRIC funding canceled for the construction of a setback levee. The existing levee was just an inch or two away from being overtopped by floodwaters earlier this month, according to Orting’s mayor, Joshua Penner.
“Had it been just a couple percent worse, we would have seen catastrophic damage,” Penner said, adding that he expects the existing levee to fail soon.
“I don’t know when, but soon,” he said.
There is no date set for the new levee’s construction, and it still faces additional permitting, construction and design hurdles.
Despite the recent win in the lawsuit over BRIC funding, it’s not clear when affected projects will get their funding or whether the legal battle will continue.
“We don’t know what their next step is, if they’re going to try to appeal or block the order,” said Mike Faulk, a spokesperson for the Washington state attorney general’s office. “They haven’t signaled anything about when or if they’ll turn the money back on.”
While the fight over BRIC funds has played out, another $31 million in grants are awaiting a signature from Noem, according to Cook. The homeland security secretary instituted a policy requiring all spending over $100,000 to be personally approved by her, current and former FEMA officials told NBC News in July.
One of the grants supported an $18.8 million program designed to acquire or elevate properties that have flooded at least twice in 10 years. The state planned to primarily use the program to buy properties and convert them to open space as a buffer for floodwaters. About 530 properties — across every county in Washington — have been identified as candidates for the voluntary buyouts.
“We were at the very last steps of getting that awarded when the new DHS review requirement came into play,” Cook said.
He said the grant has been stalled since June. NBC News could not independently verify the grant’s status.
In some areas hit hardest by the December storms, including the communities of Everson and Sumas, homes have flooded repeatedly.
Curt Hart, a spokesperson for the Washington state Department of Ecology, said that because it typically takes at least a year for people to go through a buyout process or raise their home, the project probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome of this round of weather.
But atmospheric river storms will cause the state’s rivers to flood again.
“It’s important for us to keep these kinds of projects going and moving as much as we can,” Hart said.