BRIC by BRIC: Building Disaster Resilience with FEMA's New Funding Initiative | Capitol Beach

American Shoreline Podcast Network

On The Capitol Beach, Derek Brockbank hosts Camille Crain, the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) section chief within Hazard Mitigation Assistance Division at FEMA. Only authorized 5 years ago, BRIC has quickly become one of the (if not the singular) biggest federal funding programs for resilience to natural hazards, in large part due to its funding coming directly from post-disaster funding. Specifically, 6% of Stafford Act disaster funding is now set aside for BRIC to improve resilience in communities pre-disaster. Even though BRIC is too new to have a fully a constructed project to its credit, the program is evolving to better support underserved communities, implement nature-based solutions, and provide technical assistance to communities unable to fully develop their own resilience project applications. BRIC currently has a funding opportunity of $1 Billion (together with a $800 million opportunity from its “sister program”, Flood Mitigation Assistance), with state applications due to FEMA on Feb. 29, 2024. All community applicants need to be part of state submissions, so individual applications will be due to their states’ hazard mitigation or emergency management office earlier. The next BRIC opportunity is anticipated for fall of 2024.