When Professor Tora Johnson and her University of Maine at Machias team were preparing an application for a federal grant to help fund a seawall and berms to protect low-lying downtown Machias from floods, it seemed they had a project that fit.
Maine, with its thousands of miles of serpentine coastline and communities highly vulnerable to flooding and storms, would seem the perfect candidate for FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants, an umbrella of awards aimed at making towns and cities more resilient to natural disasters and less reliant on federal funding when calamities do strike. But communities aren’t applying for the funding and when they do, few are successful.
By Kate Cough, The Maine Monitor November 25, 2023 Maine, with its thousands of miles of serpentine coastline and communities highly vulnerable to flooding and storms, would seem the perfect candidate for FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants, an umbrella of awards aimed at making towns and cities more resilient to natural disasters and less reliant