CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Adjutant Gen. James Hoyer says West Virginia continues to move with “deliberate speed” to provide long-term flood relief to residents.
Hoyer, appearing on MetroNews’ “Talkline” today, provided an update on progress recovering from the catastrophic 2016 flood.
The RISE disaster relief program has completed 50 homes for people, Hoyer said.
But there are 498 total cases. That number has continued to go up as state officials have reviewed the cases and added another 170 to the total, he said.
“When we consolidated the case management systems, we went back through the cases we inherited and we added back in people we actually found eligible,” Hoyer said.
Hoyer planned to provide a similar update to lawmakers this afternoon during an appearance before the Joint Legislative Committee on Flooding.
WV State Adjutant General James A. Hoyer joins @HoppyKercheval to talk about the RISE program and long-term flood recovery. WATCH:https://t.co/wkudfIAoe1 pic.twitter.com/LqU2eYc8gK
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) April 30, 2019
The $150 million in long-term flood relief money available to West Virginia for RISE comes through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
West Virginia has returned to HUD’s “slow spender” list, which reflects the pact required to close out a grant. West Virginia still had $135,955,542 on hand as of March 29.
Hoyer noted that states have six years to spend down the available dollars.
“It will take the entire six-year period to execute all the money that comes out of this program,” Hoyer said on “Talkline.”
Of the nearly 500 cases, he suggested 300 will be at various stages of the relief process by this June.
But he said construction will require more time.
“If we level out at about 500 in case management, we’ll have 300 in contract management by the end of June,” he said, “but I still believe we have another two years of construction work going forward, just on the housing piece alone.”
West Virginia, after months and months of planning, made its request to start using the HUD money on Jan. 29, 2018.
HUD gave its OK on Feb. 20, 2018.
Shortly after that, Gov. Jim Justice and his staff became concerned about a contract extension for the consultant Horne LLP, which was supposed to provide guidance on administering flood relief.
Justice declared a “pause” on the Horne contract and eventually broke off the relationship with the consultant.
At that time, the public became concerned with just how little progress had been made on flood relief.
In early June, 2018, Justice placed Hoyer and the West Virginia National Guard in charge of long-term flood relief.
Asked today whether the guidance of a consultant might actually be helpful, Hoyer described a learning curve for state government to learn to handle the intricacies of disaster relief itself.
Many of the challenges of that work include complying with federally-required environmental studies and ensuring that applicants are eligible and aren’t receiving duplicate benefits.
“We’re creating the capacity that we believe we have within state government and pulling it together to be able to do that and to have that in place going forward,” he said.
He described a “continuity plan” that could be in place as a guide for handling future disasters.
“We’re building that framework for the state going forward while we address the problems of taking care of getting houses built and doing the Riverview project and building bridges,” he said. “So we’re building the airplane while we fly.”
Hoyer then was asked if that’s the best approach.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know if it’s the best way but it’s the way we’ve got right now. We were tasked, the Guard by the governor, to get the program on track and create the capacity going forward that we need from the state of West Virginia to avoid these problems in the future.”