FEMA grants most R.I. requests after major disasters

PROVIDENCE (AP) — Communities in Rhode Island have received most of the money they have requested from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to recover from major disasters over the past decade.

The Associated Press analyzed a decade's worth of data from FEMA to show how often it accepts or denies final appeals for disaster assistance.

The data shows that FEMA funded about 1,850 projects from 679 applicants in Rhode Island, totaling $69 million. Another 30 project applications were not funded. A few projects received less money than requested.

There were three appeals to FEMA headquarters, two from Cranston and one from Westerly. All were denied. Nationwide, the denials far outnumbered the grants in FEMA's final appeal process, costing local entities at least $1.2 billion during the period examined.

The director of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency said in some cases, the grant process "moves at a glacial pace," which can frustrate people, and it's not foolproof, but he praised FEMAfor working to make it simpler and faster.

"I think Rhode Island has been treated fairly," Peter Gaynor said Thursday.

More than a third of the total funding, about $25 million, went toward recovering from flooding in March 2010.

Cranston received grants for about two dozen projects to remove debris, restore public utilities and repair roads and bridges after the flooding. It was denied about $70,000 to replace damaged police and fire equipment, so the city appealed.

FEMA said in the final appeal process for the two requests that it would not pay for new police vehicles, only used ones, and some of the fire department's equipment could be cleaned instead of replaced.

The city eventually bought new equipment on its own as part of its normal schedule for upgrades, and cleaned what it could, said Mark Schieldrop, spokesman for the mayor. It wasn't "budget busting," he said, but the city had to absorb both the cost of the equipment and the time and resources it took to work on the grants.

"We were extremely careful to make sure we were specifically going after things that were justifiable. We didn't ask for anything we didn't deserve," he said. "The money we did get was very helpful. The floods were devastating."