Federal Conservation Agency Opens Disaster Center to Help Communities Repair Damage From Hurricane Floyd

Washington DC, September 16, 1999-- Today, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) established a Disaster Coordination Center in Atlanta, Georgia to help southeast coastal communities ravaged by Hurricane Floyd assess and repair environmental damage that poses an imminent threat to life or property.

"While storms of this magnitude pose serious direct risks to communities, the indirect risks resulting from damage to natural resources are equally hazardous," said Charles Adams, regional conservationist for NRCS’s Southeast regional office. "If debris-clogged waterways are not cleared, and streambanks and channels are not restored, future storms could cause devastating flooding and property loss." Adams pointed out that Hurricane Floyd is likely to be just one of a series of storms that could strike the southeast this hurricane season.

"Our Disaster Coordination Center will speed environmental damage assessment and reporting so that NRCS can begin helping communities clean up the damage, prevent even greater risks to life and property from future storms, and restore the health of their natural resources" he said.

NRCS helps communities repair storm damage through its Emergency Watershed Protection program (EWP), which funds 75 percent of the cost of repairing environmental damage caused by hurricanes and other natural disasters. The program also provides communities with technical assistance, such as engineering services, to clear clogged streams, storm pipes and other waterways, restore natural channels, repair and reinforce streambanks and other efforts that reduce risks from future storm damage. Under other programs, NRCS also provides technical assistance to help restore eroded beaches and sand dunes and to help farmers repair erosion damage in their fields.

EWP program funding is made available by special congressional spending legislation after damage assessments have been conducted. Congress provided $75 million to EWP to help southeastern communities recover from Hurricanes Fran, Georges and Danny.

"State and local NRCS offices are already working with communities to assess and report storm damage," Adams said. Trained NRCS Disaster Assistance Recovery Teams are standing by and will be available to help affected states and communities use the EWP program to repair environmental damage as soon as it is safe for the teams to enter the areas.

NRCS, a division of the US Department of Agriculture, is the only federal agency devoted to financial and technical conservation assistance to private landowners and communities.

A fact sheet on the EWP program follows. Beginning next week, information on resource damage assessments will be posted at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov as it becomes available.

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