New, additional “manual review processes” handed down by the Federal Emergency Management Agency have led to a delay in funding for Hurricane Helene-related response and recovery in Southwest Virginia, according to a memo sent by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to localities.
That memo, sent Friday and obtained by Cardinal News, added that the state agency does not know when localities will begin to see financial relief for the cost of rebuilding that public infrastructure. It also outlined a lack of communication from the federal agency to the state.
The state agency acknowledged that additional federal review of applications for disaster recovery reimbursement grants are the driving force behind funding delays for localities, as they work to rebuild public infrastructure in the aftermath of Helene-related flooding that hit the region in late September.
The town of Damascus, which was hit particularly hard by Helene-related flooding, did not receive the memo until Monday, when it was provided to town officials by Cardinal News for review.
“While we appreciate the update, I must express my profound disappointment,” Chris Bell, Damascus’ town manager, said via email. “The message it conveys is essentially the same as the vague and unhelpful information we received a month ago, and it’s simply unacceptable.”
The cost to repair town property and infrastructure is estimated to be upwards of $1.8 million, Bell said, and the town is pursuing financial support through FEMA’s public assistance program. The estimated cost includes repairs to town-owned buildings, town roads, town sidewalks, town parks and the portion of the Virginia Creeper Trail owned by the town. Damascus has spent roughly $250,000 on the rebuilding effort to date and has received about $97,000 from the federal agency so far, in the nearly seven months since the disaster.
Damascus’ budget for fiscal year 2025 is roughly $2.2 million. The town’s population is just shy of 800 people, and its economic driver in the community is tourism to the region.
Bell said that when he had asked VDEM about the status of reimbursement for Helene response and recovery, he had been told to check the “payable status” in the state agency’s online grant system. He said that the status had been and remains “pending batch processing,” with no indication of when that batch of grant applications would be processed.
FEMA had approved and obligated roughly $125,000 to reimburse the town for emergency response and road repairs, equipment and resources, as well as expenses associated with the town’s temporary police station and town hall, but the money has not yet been released.
“The people of Damascus deserve better than this bureaucratic limbo,” Bell said.
VDEM was given no indication of when localities could begin to see FEMA funds
The memo outlining funding delays prompted by additional federal review processes came amid the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle federal agencies and after the federal agency announced its plan to cancel grants for its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, program. Vice President JD Vance has visited Damascus twice, first as a candidate and then as vice president, and promised help — and disparaged the previous administration’s efforts to provide relief to the flood-stricken region.
After meeting with local, regional and state leaders in Damascus at the end of January, Vance told news media that he and the Trump administration will work on cutting through barriers to provide federal assistance. “Government can do a heck of a lot better,” he said. 
VDEM was notified by FEMA on Feb. 28 of a new manual review process requirement for disaster relief grants. That notification said that “effective immediately, FEMA and DHS are conducting additional reviews of allocations before releasing funds for all grants.”
On March 19, FEMA provided revised guidance on how documentation should be presented and submitted for some, but not all, of its grant programs. VDEM had submitted the requested documentation but had not received feedback or guidance as of Friday, according to the memo.
Outstanding expenses awaiting payment from FEMA include all federal grants that VDEM administers, including those related to Helene recovery. That money covers disaster reimbursements to state, local and nonprofit organizations; preparedness funds to local governments to be ready for the next disaster; funds to enhance security for nonprofits; and funds to build back stronger and reduce future risk to flooding.
It is unclear how much money is delayed. The state agency did not respond when asked which localities it expects to be affected by the delay.
“Unfortunately, at this time, we do not have an update as to when and if these funds will be made available,” John Scrivani, acting state coordinator for VDEM, wrote in the memo to localities. “We understand that we have several local projects and programs that rely on grant funding, as many of our agency’s functions do as well. Therefore, we are asking for your patience and understanding as we navigate this together.”
FEMA funds, meant to support rebuilding public infrastructure after a disaster, are funneled through the state government in the form of reimbursement. A locality affected by a disaster pays the cost of rebuilding up front and submits an application to the federal and state agencies to have those costs reimbursed.
Neither Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, nor Gov. Glenn Youngkin sounded alarmed by the additional federal review process, subsequent delays in funding or the lack of communication by the federal agency to the state.
“We have not heard about these funding delays from local folks. The letter is self-explanatory,” Griffith said when asked about the memo and the possible delay in reimbursement that it laid out.
“FEMA has put every grant program under manual review, but disaster funding is still moving. In fact, Virginia localities and state agencies have received disaster relief funding just in the last two weeks,” said Youngkin spokesperson Peter Finocchio. “VDEM is working closely with FEMA daily to process disaster grant reimbursements, and the Governor continues to be in close contact with Administration officials to ensure Virginians get the relief they need as swiftly as possible.”
Finocchio did not respond when asked for documentation to support his assertion that Virginia localities and state agencies had received disaster relief funding in the last two weeks.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., pushed back against the new federal review processes.
“All federal funding that gets allocated goes through a thorough review process,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “FEMA and DHS’s announcement to conduct additional reviews of grants, including for emergency management and disaster assistance, is ridiculous. These communities need funding as soon as possible, and the Trump Administration is unnecessarily making it harder for these communities to rebuild.”
VDEM did not respond to a request for more information. 
Localities told that the ‘money is on hold’
Russell County has submitted reimbursement applications to FEMA for 13 Helene-related response, recovery and rebuilding projects, including debris removal, emergency management and services, and rebuilding infrastructure in three different towns. Funding for seven of those projects had been processed by the federal agency and is now before the state government for review and disbursement. It is unclear when the money for those projects will be released.
“We’ve been told that the money is on hold,” said Jess Powers, the county’s emergency management coordinator, who received the VDEM memo on Friday. “It’s a lot of work to get these reimbursements.”
The county had begun to work on its reimbursement application in November, and the process is typically lengthy due to the amount of documentation required. The county submitted its applications along with all necessary documents to the federal agency on Feb. 12, Powers said.
“We have not received any money yet,” he said. “We’re hurting financially because we are a small rural county in Southwest Virginia and so we don’t have a large tax base here, and we don’t have any way to recover those funds unless it comes through either VDEM or FEMA.”
Other localities that received the memo on Friday were less concerned about the delay laid out by the missive.
“This doesn’t seem like it’s going to affect us here in Washington County,” said Theresa Kingsley, the emergency manager for the county.
Kingsley noted that Washington County is working primarily with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to repair and fortify the county’s waterways. Aside from that, the county had already begun to receive public assistance funding, after the first of the year, to rebuild an emergency medical service station in Green Cove that had been destroyed.
Damascus is located in Washington County, but the incorporated town has submitted its reimbursement requests separately from the county.
“We’ve started getting some in. They’re still not all in yet, but we have started seeing some money come in on the public assistance side,” Kingsley said.
Capt. James Cox, the emergency manager in Galax who received the memo on Friday, said that the process for disaster reimbursement from the federal government has never been quick. The city is still in the process of submitting documentation for its Helene-recovery funding requests.
“As far as the timeline, it doesn’t seem like it’s any more cumbersome or any delay compared to what I’ve dealt with in the past,” he said.
Localities in limbo as they wait and prepare to apply for recent disaster assistance
These delays could also affect the federal response to more recent floods that have hit the Southwest region of the state. On April 9, President Donald Trump approved a disaster declaration for localities that were affected by February floods.
Days later, on April 11, the memo from VDEM was sent to localities to outline the new federal review process, possible funding delays and the lack of communication from the federal agency. In light of the new review processes, it is unclear how long it could take for localities to get reimbursed for their response and recovery to either the February flood or Helene-related floods.
Floyd County is waiting both on reimbursements for flood response and recovery and on a grant from the federal agency to mitigate the effects of future disasters on its communities.
Lydeana Martin, the community and economic development director for Floyd County, had submitted an application for a mitigation grant to the state and federal agencies for over $1 million just before learning about the possible funding delays on Friday. That money would cover the cost of backup generators for well water infrastructure, sewer pump stations and wastewater treatment plants. She had been working on the application, which she said was hundreds of pages long, for months.
“In both Helene and the February event, we had power outages from one to three or four days,” she said.
Floyd County had just been approved for Helene-related response reimbursements to the tune of $20,000. That would cover equipment, generators and county facilities used during the county’s response to Helene.
“We literally got word of that [approval] Wednesday of last week, so now I don’t know if that’s real or not,” she said during a phone interview Tuesday.
Martin noted that Floyd County had been hit harder by the February flooding, and the county plans to begin applying for public assistance related to the response to that disaster. She estimated that cost to be around $30,000.
“I intend to put the time in to do that, but it’s hard when you don’t know if it’s real or not,” she said.
Damascus was one of the early applicants for federal assistance following Helene-related flooding. The town had begun to receive funds to rebuild and repair in December and early January.
“But since then, we’ve had additional projects obligated — meaning we’ve checked all the boxes, we did all of the paperwork, everybody signed off on it, but now there is a delay in payment,” Bell said during a phone interview Thursday, before the memo was sent by VDEM to localities regarding the delay.
“I think with the new administration there’s been a slowdown in releasing those funds that the state can’t do anything about at this point, so they’re just on hold, paused as the new administration is kind of looking at things differently,” he said.
Bell noted on Monday that both Youngkin and Vance had been made aware of the “urgent need for the timely release of these disaster relief funds to the Town of Damascus.”
Those dollars had already been obligated by the federal agency to the town, and those funds are required to reimburse contractors for completed work and to cover staff time, materials and equipment dedicated to this recovery, he said.
“These are not theoretical amounts; they represent actual expenditures for work already done,” he said. “To be told, repeatedly, that these funds are being held up due to a nebulous ‘review process’ and that VDEM has no timeline for their release is incredibly frustrating. This lack of specificity and the continued delays create a severe financial strain on our town, hindering our ability to fully recover from the devastation of Hurricane Helene.
“We need concrete answers and a clear timeline.” 
