Source: United States Senator for Kentucky Mitch McConnell
WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released the following statement today regarding FEMA’s approval of $5,037,678 in federal funding to help Hopkins County, Kentucky in its efforts to recover from the December 10-11, 2021 tornadoes. The funding will be used to reimburse Hopkins County for debris removal.
“I’m happy to hear Hopkins County is benefitting from FEMA’s assistance program and will receive $5 million to help recover from the 2021 tornadoes. This federal funding will take an enormous financial burden off the County, allowing them to keep their attention and budgets on rebuilding,” said Senator McConnell. “We are a long way from fully repairing the damage left by the storm, but this is an important step in the right direction.”
BACKGROUND: Senator McConnell has played a key role in helping Kentuckians affected by the recent disasters recover. Last November, he secured nearly $49 million from the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program to help the Commonwealth recover from disasters that occurred last year. Senator McConnell helped secure these funds by including additional resources for the CDBG-DR program in the Continuing Resolution to fund the government that passed the Senate and was signed into law. This funding will help Kentucky recover from several major disasters that occurred in the Commonwealth in 2021, including the December 2021 devastating tornado outbreak in Western Kentucky and the flooding in Eastern Kentucky during February and March of 2021.
Last March, he secured an additional $75 million from the CDBG-DR program to help Eastern and Western Kentucky recover from last year’s flooding and tornadoes, respectively. He also secured significant resources in the Fiscal Year 2022 Government Funding bill to help affected communities, including requiring FEMA to increase federal disaster response funding from 75% to 90% of disaster costs. This increase in federal resources immediately provided more than $30 million to communities impacted by previous disasters and will provide millions more for communities still rebuilding.
Senator McConnell visited several communities hit by the 2021 tornadoes, which were the most destructive in the Commonwealth’s history, and last year’s floods. Along with the rest of Kentucky’s congressional delegation, the Senator supported the Governor’s multiple federal disaster relief requests to the President and created a web portal to help Kentuckians access federal resources.
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