Coalition on flood policy pushes for proactive funding for Ohio, other Appalachian states
By Susan Tebben, Ohio Capital JournalDecember 9, 2025A new multi-state coalition is pushing for federal funding and support for Ohio and other Appalachian states as major flooding events increase in the region.
The Appalachian Flood Resilience Coalition spent its first meeting dissecting the federal battles to fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the future of flood-related advocacy.
Brendan Muckian-Bates, policy and advocacy associate with the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, said the coalition began forming after the July 2022 floods that hit eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia. The group united around “resiliency in Appalachia and understanding that these hundred-year, thousand-year flooding events were becoming more common.”
“They were becoming more frequent, deadlier, and the communities where we live and work were really underprepared for the increased devastation that we were witnessing first-hand,” Muckian-Bates said.
Tracking flooding events
Natalie Kruse Daniels, professor at Ohio University and director of the environmental studies program, presented a new project on the importance of collecting data through stream gages in Appalachia to help predict future disasters. Stream gages are devices that study water conditions and river flow. Being able to predict and study floods can not only help with disaster cleanup and mitigation, but also the factors that come along with floods, like infrastructure damage and “social vulnerability.”
“Personally … finding good data is one of the biggest challenges when we’re looking at how we practically work on flood damages,” Daniels said.
According to the study conducted by Daniels and Chloe Partlow, rural areas that have a lack of local funding and population density have fewer stream gages to gather data the researchers said is “essential for flood modeling, prediction and warnings.”
The U.S. Geological Survey, which operates more than 11,000 stream gages across the country, is underfunded, hampering its ability to collect more data, the research stated. That struggle comes amid more and more flood events in Appalachia.
“The Central Appalachian region has seen repeated severe flood events that have led to federal disaster declarations and activated FEMA response,” according to Daniels and Partlow’s research.
In some places, up to 16 disasters have been declared between 2011 and 2024.
The attendees of the coalition’s first meeting, which included advocates and regional representatives, were asked what they would fix about natural disaster response and recovery if they had a magic wand. Overwhelmingly, the votes went to funding and communication, along with collaboration and development in the floodplain.
The group was also asked what they wish policymakers knew about flooding in Appalachia, and proactive action rather than a focus on clean up came up several times, along with acknowledgment of how susceptible Appalachian communities are to major flooding.
“Eventually it can affect you, and I think that’s something that does get lost for policymakers,” Muckian-Bates said.
The law center is working on a project to record the “lessons learned” from Hurricane Helene. In talking with affected communities, Erin Savage, Central Appalachian program manager for the law center, said it was clear that anticipation and intensity of flooding events were becoming more and more challenging, and the enormity of the events is adding to the problems.
“(Hurricane Helene) occurred over such a huge area that there was just a lot of confusion,” Savage said. “Usually counties would be able to assist each other, maybe if one county wasn’t hit so bad it could help a neighboring county, but it was so widespread that there was just no extra capacity.”
Where’s the funding?
Appalachian regions are hoping disaster support at the federal level will start improving, but they are cautiously optimistic about the possibilities coming in the next appropriations bill, along with separate efforts currently sitting in Congress.
Federal appropriations related to flooding support for fiscal year 2026 “did not experience the really drastic cuts proposed by the President’s budget request from earlier in the spring,” according to Jessica Arriens, of the National Wildlife Federation. She also said $500,000 appeared in the newest House appropriation proposal for the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative. The federation had requested $5 million in congressional outreach efforts.
“Certainly a lot lower than our request, but if that does pass, it would be the first time that (the initiative) ever got federal funding, so we’d love to see it higher because that program’s really impactful, but we’ll certainly take what we can get,” Arriens said.
Appropriations are unfortunately still imaginary money until passed on Capitol Hill, and even then, convincing higher-ups in the Trump administration to release the money could be another challenge.
“It doesn’t necessarily matter how much gets appropriated if President Trump and cabinet secretaries won’t allow federal agencies like FEMA to spend the money that’s appropriated,” Arriens said.
FEMA has already seen funding get blocked by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, to the tune of more than $100,000, according to Kevin Zedak, government affairs specialist for Appalachian Voices.
“We’ve seen this impacting community projects directly, holding up that funding from approval,” Zedak said. “So this has been a big hurdle in communities accessing that funding, whether it’s hazard mitigation assistance that was previously distributed, or public assistance.”
Grants from the federal Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program saw $882 million rescinded by FEMA leaders as well, Zedak said, but there are efforts in Congress to “reinstall” that program.
With FEMA reducing their staff by about one-third, and hazard mitigation funding not being consistently awarded after a disaster, the state of Appalachian recovery from flooding and other natural occurrences could become tenuous.
Federal efforts to help the situation exist, but are sitting on a shelf awaiting congressional action.
New legislation was introduced to simplify the process of accessing assistance and create a universal disaster assistance application passed a House committee in September. The bill would also increase transparency on decisions regarding assistance eligibility, according to Rebecca Shelton, director of policy for the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center.
“(In applying for FEMA assistance) there’s often multiple rounds of rejections from FEMA and appeals from households, and it’s a long and drawn out and challenging, and it’s not very transparent,” Shelton said.
The bill would help bring clarity to the process and transition the public assistance funding model from a reimbursement process to a grant model, something Shelton said advocates support.
While the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee expressed confidence in the bill, “currently there’s not a clear vehicle in the House, there’s not yet a companion bill in the Senate, and President Trump is not indicating any support for the bill,” Shelton said.
There’s also a provision in the “ROAD to Housing Act,” passed in a Senate committee in October, that would permanently authorize grants for disaster recovery. Though the provision made it into an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate, the provision wasn’t included in the House’s version, leaving the fate of the provision in limbo.
So, the path forward isn’t clear, but Shelton said the remedy is “continued support and advocacy from stakeholders in Appalachia and across the country.”
