U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody said Florida has secured more than $1.56 billion in federal disaster relief funding to reimburse costs from hurricanes, drought, fires and freezes over the past several years. Moody said the money, coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will cover more than 500 state projects that have already been completed.
The reimbursements are meant to pay Florida back for work already done, not to launch new recovery efforts. Moody said the funding runs through FEMA’s Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation Assistance programs and includes debris removal, infrastructure repairs, power restoration and stormwater projects across the state.
Moody said she has been working with recently appointed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to push the money through, calling the funds long delayed by bureaucracy. In a statement, she said she came to Washington to fight for Florida’s best interest and said she was proud to announce the recovery of more than $1.5 billion in FEMA reimbursements for communities hit hard by disasters.
The scale of the reimbursement list shows how broad Florida’s recovery burden has been. Among the larger projects are $17.2 million for Sarasota countywide contracted debris removal, $6.6 million for Tallahassee citywide debris removal, $4.1 million for Brevard County dune engineering, $4.1 million for Clearwater beach walkways and seawall projects, and $2.2 million for Dunedin marina seawall projects.
Other reimbursements include $721,822 for Columbia County power restoration, $617,987 for Madeira Beach parking lot repairs, $617,068 for Lynn Haven Waste Water Plant repairs and $167,955 for Seminole County roads and stormwater projects. Moody said the funding reflects years of disaster costs that had been slow walked through the federal government, and Mullin said FEMA is committed to cutting red tape and sending resources directly to communities that need them most.
The money arrives as Florida continues to deal with the aftereffects of repeated storms and other weather emergencies, with local governments still carrying the cost of cleanup, repairs and resilience work. For now, the key question is not whether the projects were needed, but how quickly the reimbursements move from federal approval into local budgets that have been waiting years to be made whole.
