FEMA cuts impacting Crisfield flood mitigation project

CRISFIELD, Md. – A flood mitigation project in Crisfield is on pause.

This comes after FEMA announced it is eliminating its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program.

The cuts cancel out a $36 million flood mitigation grant the City of Crisfield was awarded last year.

“The FEMA cut is a big challenge for the city and for many rural towns across the nation,” said Jennifer Merritt, Climate Resilience and Project Consultant for the City of Crisfield. “We had $36 million in funding that we no longer have so we have to identify an alternative source for implementing this plan.”

The City of Crisfield is now actively searching for new ways to fund its Southern Crisfield Flood Mitigation Project.

Although, the original source of funding has been slashed, the City is still holding on to plans for the project.

“The plans that were developed for this project are very valuable, engineers spent many, many hours working on them, so we’re still going to make use of them, we just have to find a new way to do that,” said Merritt.

The plan itself was developed by FEMA’s Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Direct Technical Assistance and would raise surrounding infrastructure across town five feet above sea level.

“We’d raise roads, bulkheads and where there is no road or bulkhead we will berm to connect the roads and bulkheads, so essentially that will form a sea wall around Crisfield,” said Merritt.

Merritt said the City of Crisfield was the highest scoring applicant for the FEMA BRIC grant.

It showed for every dollar FEMA spent, four dollars would be saved in flood mitigation that would not need to occur.

Danny Nelson, owner of Waters Edge Cafe, said no matter the plan, it would be difficult to stop Crisfield from experiencing rising waters.

“It would cost a lot of money to keep Crisfield from flooding,” said Nelson. “I think after spending tens of millions of dollars it probably won’t stop it completely. It’s hard to stop the tide.”

The City will be holding a Community Resilience Day on April 26th to discuss environmental solutions to area flooding.

They are also working on nature based solutions with EPA’s Office of Research and Development.