Oxford County
Emergency Management Agency

PO Box 179, 26 Western Avenue
South Paris ME 04281
Ph 207-743-6336 FAX 207-743-7346 oxctyema@megalink.net
Office hours: Monday through Friday 8am-4pm

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FEMA Public Assistance Process

Eligibility
Action Items for Assistance
Emergency Work
Permanent Work

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Public Assistance Program provides Federal grant assistance for the repair, replacement, or restoration of disaster damaged, publicly owned and certain private non-profit facilities. Grants are funded on a 75% Federal and 15% State and 10% local cost sharing basis.

Eligibility:

Applicants Include:

state, county, city, village, town or other political subdivision of the state and private non-profit organizations or institutions.*

*operate certain educational, utility, emergency, medical or custodial care facilities, and non-profit organizations providing essential governmental services.

Facilities or infrastructure are/were:

∙ Located within the declared disaster area
∙ Damaged as a result of a Presidentially declared event
∙ The legal responsibility of an eligible applicant
∙ Active use at the time of the disaster

Facilities or infrastructure can be:

∙ Damaged roads and bridges (not under the authority of the FHA or other federal agency)
∙ Water control facilities
∙ Public buildings, their contents and equipment
∙ Publicly owned utilities
∙ Parks and recreation areas

Costs

∙ Reasonable and necessary costs to accomplish work
∙ Comply with federal, state and local laws and regulations
∙ Require that insurance proceeds, salvage value and purchase discounts must be deducted.

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Action items for Assistance

Local/Applicant

∙ Document costs incurred to prepare for, respond to and recover from natural disasters.
∙ File Request for Public Assistance to the State (can be done at Applicant’s Briefing)
∙ Works with FEMA project officers to write the project worksheets.
∙ Receives/manages obligated dollars in order to complete projects.
∙ Required to comply with all reporting requirements

State

∙ Conducts applicant briefings
∙ Works with applicant and FEMA to ensure Project Worksheets are appropriate/accurate
∙ Disburse funds to applicant
∙ Works with applicant to close out projects
∙ Assists applicants to resolve any issues.

FEMA

∙ Work with applicant and state to write project worksheets
∙ Reviews and approves eligible projects
∙ Obligates dollars for eligible projects to State
∙ Works with state and applicant to close out projects

Applicant Responsibilities

∙ Timely submission of RPAs, must be done within 30-days of date of declaration
∙ Identification of all damage within 60 days of kick-off meeting.
∙ Provide all necessary documentation to substantiate costs/damages.
∙ Provide copies of insurance policies and other insurance documentation of loss calculation and settlement.
∙ Maintain complete and accurate documentation by project, of all disaster-related costs.

**Public Assistance is available for specific categories of work**

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Emergency Work

Emergency work is that which must be performed to reduce or eliminate an immediate threat to life, protect public health and safety, and to protect improved property that is threatened in a significant way as a result of the disaster.

A. Debris Removal

Potentially eligible debris removal activities include the clearance of:

∙ Trees and woody debris
∙ Building components or contents
∙ Sand, mud, silt and gravel
∙ Wreckage produced during conduct of emergency protective measures (e.g. drywall
∙ Other disaster related wreckage

∙ Debris removal must be in the public interest which is

    o Eliminate immediate threats to lives, public health and safety
    o Eliminate immediate threats of significant damage to improved public or     private property when the measures are cost effective.
    o Ensure economic recovery of the affected community to the benefit of the community at large
    o Mitigate the risk to life and property by removing substantially damaged structures

B. Emergency Protective Measures

Measures that are taken by a community before, during and following a disaster that are necessary to do one of the following:

∙ Eliminate or reduce an immediate threat to life, public health, or safety
∙ Eliminate or reduce an immediate threat of significant damage to improved public or private property through cost-effective measures.

Examples of activities that may be eligible:

∙ Warning of risks and hazards.

∙ Search and rescue, including transportation of disaster victims.

∙ Emergency medical facilities. Eligible costs include any additional temporary facilities and equipment required to treat disaster victims when existing facilities are overloaded or damaged.

∙ Emergency evacuations of medical and custodial care facilities. To include the costs of transportation and extraordinary labor costs for non-medical staff assisting in the evacuations.

∙ Facility costs for emergency mass care and shelter operations provided by volunteer agencies.

∙ Facility costs for emergency mass care and shelter operations provided by governmental entities when volunteer agencies are unable to provided emergency mass care and shelter.

∙ Expenses for PNPs for providing emergency protective measures for their facilities

∙ Security in the disaster area

∙ Provision of food, water, ice, and other essential needs at central distribution points for use by the local populations.

∙ Temporary generators for facilities that provide health and safety services.

∙ Rescue, care, shelter, and essential needs for household pets and service animals if claimed by a State or local government.

∙ The provisions of rescue, evacuation, movement of supplies and person, care, shelter, and essential needs for human populations affected by the outbreak and spread of influenza pandemic.

∙ Provisions of temporary facilities for schools (public and PNP) and essential community services.

∙ Activation of a state or local emergency operations center to coordinate and direct the response to a disaster event.

∙ Demolition and removal of damaged public and private buildings and structures that pose an immediate threat to the safety of the general public.

∙ Removal of health and safety hazards; disposal of dead animals, pumping of trapped floodwaters that threaten improved property, pumping of flooded basements, pumping of septic tanks or decontamination of wells, vector control of rodents and insects.

∙ Construction of emergency protective measures to protect lives or improved property; temporary levees, berms, dikes and sandbagging, buttressing, bracing, or shoring a damaged structure to protect against further damage, emergency repairs to protective facilities.

∙ Emergency measures to prevent further damage to an eligible facility.

∙ Restoration of access to eligible applicants for driveway, road, or bridge.

Other types of Emergency Work may include:

∙ Emergency Communications
∙ Emergency Public Transportation
∙ Building Inspection
∙ Snow Removal

**Additional guidance will be required to ensure eligibility by applicants**

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Permanent Work

Permanent work is that which is required to restore a damaged facility, through repair or restoration, to its pre-disaster design, function, and capacity in accordance with applicable codes or standards.

C. Roads and Bridges

Roads, bridges, and associated facilities are eligible for Public Assistance.

For roads (paved, gravel, and dirt) eligible items include:

Surfaces, bases, shoulders, ditches, drainage structures and low water crosses.

For bridges, eligible items include:

Decking and pavement, piers, girders, abutments, slope protection, and approaches.

D. Water Control Facilities

Water control facilities include:

Dams and reservoirs
Levees
Lined and unlined engineered drainage channels
Canals
Aqueducts
Sediment basins
Shore protective devices
Irrigation facilities
Pumping facilities

E. Buildings and Equipment

F. Utilities

∙ Water treatment plants and delivery systems
∙ Power generation and distribution facilities, including natural gas systems, wind turbines, generators and substations, and power lines
∙ Sewage collection systems and treatment plans
∙ Communications

G. Parks, Recreational, and Other

Eligible publicly owned facilities in this category include:

Mass transit facilities such as railways
Playground equipment
Swimming pools
Bath houses
Tennis courts
Boat docks
Piers
Picnic tables
Golf courses
Fish hatcheries and
Facilities that may not fit categories c-f

**All projects are subject to meeting specific requirements, regardless of category type**

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Copyright © 2007 Oxford County Emergency Management Agency
Last modified: 04/29/08