The $438 million dollars already approved by Congress for flood recovery won't be enough to help all of the households that qualify as top priority.
This from the Restore Louisiana Task Force, which has announced a set of guidelines to prioritize the distribution of federal relief money to help Louisiana families recover from the devastating August floods.
Pat Forbes, Executive Director of the Louisiana Office of Community Development, said that priority should be given to to households that had major and severe damage, are categorized as low and moderate income, and do not have flood insurance.
Close to 10,000 households fit those guidelines.
“That’s a small fraction of the total number of people impacted,” Forbes said. “And it’s still more than twice as many as we can serve with the amount of money we have."
As for when the money might trickle down to Louisiana residents - Forbes estimates it will take until December or January for the process to be completed.
Officials stressed that this is just the first allocation of recovery money. Governor John Bel Edwards has requested an additional $4-billion dollars from Congress and the White House, and will be going to Washington, DC next week to pursue those funds.
This report has been brought to you by the Louisiana Public Radio Partnership, and made possible with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.