On Tuesday, the state submitted to FEMA a “Preliminary Damage Assessment,” cataloging damage to public and private infrastructure in the wake of the early December storms. The move brings displaced Beach Road residents, and others impacted by the natural disaster, a step closer to knowing the full extent of financial assistance available to them. Seven weeks after the Dec. 2 landslide, many residents are frustrated with the pace at which aid is becoming available.
“It’s complex, confusing and we often don’t know where we are supposed to go and what we are supposed to do. We get denied frequently and are required to jump through a lot of hoops,” said Amber Winkel, who evacuated her family’s Beach Road home and business on Dec. 2, and spent the first week and a half of the evacuation without a purse or vehicle.
Winkel said she’s grateful for the aid that was immediately made available to her by the community but said she doesn’t understand why aid from larger organizations has been slower to come through.
In mid-December, $218,950 raised by a Gofundme dedicated to Haines disaster relief was turned over to the Salvation Army for distribution. Many displaced residents have asked why this pot of money wasn’t immediately made available.
“The Salvation Army told us to hold on, any aid we received now would take away from aid later,” Winkel said. She said while evacuees waited for assistance to be made available, many were maxing out credit cards covering essential needs, all the while wishing they could just return home.
During public comment at a January assembly meeting, Beach Road resident Sally Garton said she had expended most of her savings trying to replace household items and personal belongings she’d been unable to retrieve from her house.
The delay in distributing funds stems from a desire to maximize money available for long-term disaster recovery, according to Sara Chapell, who has been involved in organizing the Haines Long-Term Recovery Group, a forum in which local organizations can coordinate their recovery efforts.
Part of maximizing funding involves “not necessarily spending money right away when you have it, but looking to see where you have the most flexible funding and saving that for future needs when they become more apparent,” Chapell said. She used housing as an example. The Salvation Army paid for January rent for displaced residents, but it hasn’t funded multiple months of rent at a time because this is something the state will cover, and every month the Salvation Army covers is one month the state won’t cover.
“The state’s individual assistance program should come in and cover housing. The more the state pays for, the more resources we’ll have for the community in the long run,” Chapell said. “Hopefully, the state will come in with a temporary housing grant for everyone who needs them, at a level that works for every family.” If they don’t, organizations like the Salvation Army will be able to tap into their more-flexible pots of money to assist those whose needs remain unmet, she said. Unfortunately, this means waiting to see what the state and federal government will cover before local organizations finalize disaster relief spending plans.
On Dec. 29, Gov. Mike Dunleavy amended his initial disaster declaration for the Southeast region, activating the state’s individual assistance program for those impacted by the early December storms. State individual assistance covers costs including up to 18 months of temporary housing for homeowners, repairs to primary residences not covered by insurance, and additional needs like loss of personal property or car rentals for those separated from vehicles by the slide.
Like local organizations, the state wants to avoid covering costs that other sources of funding, like the federal government, might ultimately cover, according to Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management public information officer Jeremy Zidek. If FEMA approves individual assistance or Small Business Administration loans become available, “both of those programs need to be utilized before the state funds can be awarded.”
Zidek said it’s unclear how long it will take for FEMA to make a determination about what kind of federal assistance, if any, will be made available to individuals. The Jan. 19 Preliminary Damage Assessment initiated the process.
“We have circumstances where (the review) happens very quickly. In other cases, it takes longer. With the Cook Inlet earthquake, it happened very quickly. For others, it’s taken weeks and months,” Zidek said, adding that the administrative transition at the federal level could potentially cause delays.
Zidek said although he can’t predict what FEMA will do, there’s potential that no federal funding will be made available for individuals. “The threshold for receiving FEMA individual assistance disaster declarations is high. Damage has to be severe and widespread, and really beyond the capability of the state to address,” he said.
At present, as they wait to see what kind of state and federal funding becomes available, local organizations are trying to balance meeting residents’ immediate needs with preserving their more flexible pools of funding for future, unmet needs.
“We’ve met with forty-four households since Dec. 2. Some just needed cleaning supplies. Others need more ongoing support,” Salvation Army Alaska Division service extension and emergency disaster services director Jenni Ragland said.
When it became clear that state individual assistance wouldn’t be available in time to cover January needs, the Salvation Army stepped in, offering rent, mortgage, utility, transportation, food and other assistance on a case-by-case basis, Ragland said. She said the hope is this will give the state time to process individual assistance applications.
Once the state makes a determination about who is eligible for individual assistance, the Salvation Army will be able to refine its spending plan. “If (a family’s) not eligible for state assistance for whatever reason, then they would be able to come back to the Salvation Army,” Ragland said, adding that the organization has allocated enough resources to assist displaced residents for up to three months.
Ragland acknowledges that coordinating relief is a challenging process for everyone involved, especially because for most, it’s the first time they’ve had to navigate anything like this. She recommends residents with unmet needs reach out to the Salvation Army, even if they’ve spoken with the organization in the past, to make sure the organization is aware of those needs. Residents can schedule an appointment by calling 766-2470.
In addition to contacting the Salvation Army, those involved in coordinating the Haines relief effort encourage residents impacted by the natural disaster to file insurance claims and request a determination letter, an essential step in qualifying for the state’s individual assistance program as the state will only cover costs not covered by insurance.
Those impacted by the natural disaster have until Feb. 26 to apply for the state’s individual assistance program at http://www.ready.alaska.gov or by calling 1-800-537-4213.