Columbia County Commission Chairman Doug Duncan says he was livid to have received a copy of a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to Gov. Brian Kemp, announcing that it was ending funding for Georgia’s Hurricane Helene relief efforts after 120 days.
Earlier, Kemp had filed for an extension to allow for funding up to the cap of 180 days, but in the official letter, FEMA maintains that “it has been determined that the increased funding you requested for major disaster (sic) is not warranted.”
“I can’t believe that I am reading where FEMA spent around $59 million to house illegals in hotels, but they think that the damage here was not significant enough to warrant any more relief,” Duncan said.
According to Duncan, former President Joe Biden who set the precedent for making 180 days the norm with his announcements regarding aid to residents of Los Angeles in the wake of the devastating wildfires that left many people dead, displaced thousands of people from their homes and caused billions of dollars in damages.
While FEMA is currently under the microscope from President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), it does not appear that FEMA’s decision had anything to do with the controversial group’s cost cutting measures.
Duncan says that FEMA initially pledged $40 million earmarked for Columbia County and that the county has only received a $17 million “advance,” but he believes that FEMA will hold true to its commitment to provide the earlier earmarked funding.
“I t”I think they will eventually come through with what they initially promised, they are just dragging their feet,” Duncan said.
The funding that was denied would have the federal government covering 90 to 100% of debris removal and emergency protective measures for a full 180 days as opposed to 120 days.
Upon learning that FEMA had denied the funding extension, Duncan says that Kemp acted swiftly and added more hurricane relief for the area into the Governor’s Office budget to handle any shortfalls that may occur.
“At least in the meantime, the governor has stepped up, otherwise that would have been about $20 million that would have come directly out of the taxpayers pockets,” Duncan said.
Columbia County will likely not file an appeal directly in the case, since Kemp has agreed to cover the full 25% not covered by FEMA and any future expenses throughout the 180 day period, but Duncan says he hopes the governor will appeal the matter all the way to President Trump, if need be.
Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson echoed those sentiments, saying that any loss of funding in the city’s efforts to counteract the hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, both physical and economic, will hurt the local taxpayers eventually.
According to Johnson, Augusta-Richmond County has been promised roughly the same amount as Columbia County and late last year, FEMA even announced it was opening, up permanent offices in Augusta to help oversee the rebuilding. Johnson said that Augusta’s is not even finished with removing fallen trees, and the city has also only received an “advance funding” check in the same amount as Columbia County.
“We still have debris in our waterways and right-of-ways on the road. We are just getting to the point where we can start looking at removing construction debris from all those damaged houses and buildings,” Johnson said.
An Atlanta-based attorney, who asked to speak off the record, says her office is already receiving calls from subcontractors who have not been paid. She declined to say whether those potential clients were from Richmond or Columbia County.
