Less than 1% of $150M in available funding doled out to 2016 disaster victims, survivors

Maybe you can blame it on time passing slowly here in the mountains.
After all, it took the Appalachians, which once reached the heights of today’s Rockies, eons to get to where they are now. But that’s what 480 million years of natural erosion will do to a mountain range.
It’s kind of like the erosion of our state government’s capabilities as West Virginia’s 165th anniversary arrives this month. However, there’s nothing natural about our state government’s dysfunction; it’s all man-made.
This week, Gov. Jim Justice appointed the head of West Virginia’s National Guard to oversee a program that provides long-term flood relief.
That move comes in light of an investigation that uncovered problems within the state Commerce Department’s administration of the RISE West Virginia program.
The RISE program was created to administer about
$150 million in community development block grants for disaster recovery following the June 23, 2016, floods.
Specifically, block grants allocated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the wake of about 10 inches of rain in a 24-hour period in some areas. Their toll: 23 dead, 1,200 structures destroyed or damaged, and miles of roads, a score of bridges and other infrastructure devastated.
The Commerce Department was charged with administering the long-term flood relief grants in 2016 by then Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin.
Last month, a letter from two legislative leaders reported many of the flood victims had yet to receive any help. The RISE program began receiving applications in August 2017 for assistance but nearly a year later, little money has been doled out.
The pace that this money was being dispensed is clearly relative in light of this natural disaster’s destruction.
For a program that’s had nearly $150 million available since February and has $148.7 million remaining today, that smacks of inertia, if not worse.
Justice said at his news conference Tuesday — the first time he addressed this issue aside from a press release last week — “Give us a month, and find out what happens.”
These are the kinds of messes that make anyone despair about government, despite which party or who is at the wheel. Especially in light of the gravity of monstrous floods devastating dozens of communities and thousands of families.
That’s the kind of moment when we all should be able to look to the government to help the survivors in the short and long term.
The National Guard must do a better job of prioritizing and speeding up this process to help.
Every day counts in the aftermath of a natural disaster, not every year.