The town of Duryea, Pa., is on the banks of the Lackawanna River. Residents can see the low, placid water from their churches, schools and houses.
But, when there's a lot of rain, the river rises, and can cause catastrophic flooding.
Since the 1970s, a tall earthen levee has protected Duryea from floodwaters. But the river gets higher than it used to. Changes in the river due to development combined with the effects of climate change, which makes heavy rain more common, means that Duryea faces more water now than in the past.
"We are seeing increased storms and increased water volumes," says Laura Holbrook, the director of the flood protection authority for Luzerne County, Pa, where the town is located. The levee in Duryea needs to be raised by about 3 feet in order to adequately protect the town, she explains.
The clock is ticking to get the upgrades done, because a disaster could happen at any time. , Massive floods rocked the county in 2011 and 2014. Multiple major floods have caused millions of dollars of damage in the area around Duryea in just the last three years, and the risk is only growing. The heaviest rainstorms in the Northeast drop 60% more rain today than they did in the mid-20th century, according to the National Climate Assessment.
"It definitely keeps me up at night," Holbrook says.
However, getting the Duryea levee fixed has been impossible so far. Local authorities sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into designs for the levee upgrades, in the hopes of quickly applying for $11 million in federal funds to complete the repairs.
But there's been no way to access federal grants for such projects over the last year because the Trump administration has withheld billions of dollars for disaster preparedness and prevention that local governments – especially those in rural areas – rely on.
Last week, in response to a lawsuit by 20 states, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) agreed to restart the largest federal grant program for disaster preparedness. Competition for those funds will likely be intense, because two years worth of applicants will be vying for one year's worth of money, according to public filings released this week by FEMA. The administration will prioritize funding "major infrastructure projects" according to a FEMA press release.
FEMA did not answer questions from NPR about how long it will take for money to begin flowing again, and whether climate-related projects will be eligible going forward.
The delay and uncertainty mean Duryea and hundreds of small towns are still waiting on the federal government to disburse money that Congress already appropriated, says Andrew Rumbach, who studies disaster policy at the Urban Institute think tank.
"We're a country full of sitting ducks, unfortunately," Rumbach says. "They're vulnerable to hazards like floods and wildfires, and the climate is changing and making these events more common and more costly."
Mixed messages from the federal government
Small, rural communities like Duryea rely on the federal government to pay for infrastructure projects that protect residents against extreme weather.
"We don't have the money to do it, and we don't have the tax base to do it," says Keith Moss, the emergency management director for Duryea, which has about 5,000 residents.
The cost of upgrading the local levee is about three times the town's total annual budget.
"They don't have the resources," says Congressman Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), who represents Luzerne County and grew up in the area. "They just don't have $10 million laying around."
Under the first Trump administration, the federal government significantly stepped up its support for such communities. In 2018, President Trump signed a bill that made more money available for everything from flood walls to wildfire protection. FEMA was in charge of disbursing the money, and an agency report the following year said the investment would "save lives, reduce disaster suffering, and decrease disaster costs at all levels."
Indeed, research shows that improving infrastructure before disasters happen can reduce damage.
That 2018 FEMA program, called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, was extremely popular. Applications outstripped available funding every year, even after the Biden administration significantly increased the pot of money.
But shortly after taking office last year, the Trump administration canceled the program, saying it was "eliminating waste, fraud and abuse." The federal government stopped disbursing billions of dollars that local communities had already been promised for projects, and also stopped processing new applications for money.
That led to an outcry from local and state officials around the country, including in places that voted heavily for President Trump, such as Luzerne County, Pa. Lawmakers including Rep. Bresnahan introduced multiple bills that sought to force FEMA to restart the program, and 20 states sued the administration over the program's cancellation.
Late last year, a federal judge ordered the administration to reinstate the program, although it's unclear when money will start flowing again. In the past, it's taken a year or more for FEMA to review applications and make a decision about whether to fund specific projects, and under the Trump administration the agency has lost thousands of employees, which could potentially lead to even more administrative delays.
In Luzerne County, concern about the delayed funding is growing. Moss, the Duryea emergency manager, says local residents consistently show up to local council meetings and voice fear about the ongoing risk of flooding in town. "I think the people are really concerned," he says.
Uncertainty about which projects will get funded
The Trump administration has repeatedly called for FEMA to be drastically cut or even eliminated, and faulted the Biden administration for spending too much money on climate change. The email FEMA sent to states last week about restarting BRIC under court mandate repeated those critiques.
"Unfortunately, under President Biden, BRIC became bogged down in bureaucracy, focused on 'climate change' initiatives, and riddled with inefficiencies," the email read in part. And incoming DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who takes over the department next week, suggested that FEMA should be "restructured" during his recent Senate confirmation hearing.
Those concerns raise questions about which communities will be able to get funding for future projects, and how much money will be available going forward.
The current round of funding includes extra assistance for "small impoverished communities," promising that the federal government will pay a larger share of the total project costs if those communities win grants.
But in the last year agency leaders have reversed most initiatives put in place under the Biden administration, including changes that were meant to ensure that such communities could compete with large, densely populated cities and states, which often have teams of full-time grant-writers and emergency managers.
Rural communities and smaller towns, by comparison, often struggle to apply for large federal grants.
"It's very difficult because communities have volunteer fire departments, volunteer emergency management people," says James Brozena, a former flood protection official in Luzerne County, Pa. who now helps local governments across the region with flood risk management. "A lot of these communities, they have some little old lady that basically is the entire office staff."
And the current administration's hostility to projects related to climate change also raises questions about what types of infrastructure will get the green light for federal funding in the future. For example, sea walls and wildfire-related home protection efforts address the effects of sea level rise and more extreme wildfires, which are directly linked to climate change.
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