LONG BEACH — Decisions being made in the other Washington continue to reverberate throughout Pacific County, as a local effort that sought to secure federal funding for disaster preparation on the peninsula was stopped in its tracks earlier this month.

The city of Long Beach in late 2024 renewed interest in trying to win outside funding to help pay for the construction of a vertical evacuation tower within city limits in the event of a local-source tsunami triggered by an earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. This push for funds came after Long Beach’s attempt to build a cement berm behind Long Beach Elementary was ultimately scuttled deep into the design process in 2017 over feasibility concerns.

Fast forward seven years, and the city was invited by the Washington Emergency Management Division last fall to complete a full application for federal dollars that EMD was to receive to distribute through the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, grant program from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Long Beach had applied for the initial round of funding from BRIC, which focuses on supporting pre-disaster mitigation projects at the local level, and the city council on Nov. 4 unanimously gave its approval to continue on with the process.

City officials expressed optimism at the time about the renewed push to build a vertical evacuation tower behind LBE that could provide refuge for at least 800 people in the event of a tsunami, which the potential BRIC funding would play a critical role in making happen. Grant funding from that program would cover all phases of the project, including construction of the tower.

Due to Long Beach qualifying as an Economically Disadvantaged Rural Community, the city would be left to cover just 5% of the project’s total cost — rather than the more standard 12.5% rate — with FEMA footing the bill for 90% and the state covering the other 5%. Ensuring that the city qualified for that lower local rate was an important box to check off before moving forward with a full application, Long Beach Deputy City Administrator Ariel Smith said in November.

Gone in an instant

But the Trump administration announced April 4 that it was ending the BRIC program, saying in a news release that the move was intended to eliminate what it claimed was “waste, fraud and abuse.”

The program was started during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, and received a boost in funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was passed in 2021. Examples of projects that BRIC dollars supported included wildfire prevention, stormwater management upgrades and flood control systems.

“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters,” FEMA said in a statement.

In addition to axing the program going forward, FEMA also announced it was cancelling all applications to the program from 2020 to 2023. Any money that was awarded as part of grants but not already distributed would be immediately returned to the federal government, the agency said.

In the light of BRIC’s demise, Smith confirmed that Long Beach’s “entire project is on hold, unfortunately,” and the city is unable to apply for federal funding.

According to the National Association of Counties, the shuttering of the program means counties and other municipalities may find it more challenging to pursue large-scale mitigation projects that reduce long-term risks to their communities.

“The BRIC program was designed to support proactive planning and infrastructure upgrades before disasters strike,” the organization said in response to the program’s closure. “For counties in disaster-prone areas, the loss of these funds may result in greater reliance on post-disaster recovery dollars rather than preventive measures.”

Elsewhere in our area, the sudden cancellation of BRIC funds is also impacting the monumental Columbia Memorial Hospital project in Astoria, which is designed in part to provide a vertical evacuation space for 1,900 people.