Three large local government agencies in South Alabama are getting $3 million to assess the remaining damages and unmet needs from two hurricanes that struck coastal Alabama three years ago.

The money was announced Wednesday by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s office, and includes $1 million each to Mobile and Baldwin counties, and the City of Mobile.

The money, the governor’s office says, will allow each agency to submit recovery action plans to the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA). Once those plans are accepted, additional funds will be released to each of the governing agencies:

• The City of Mobile is expected to get $52.1 million.
• Baldwin County will get $43.3 million.
• Mobile County will get $26.3 million.

County and city officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The announcement comes a few days before the third anniversary of Hurricane Zeta, which blasted through Mobile County on October 28, 2020, and packed powerful 90 mph winds as it blew northward into southwestern and central Alabama. All told, 19 counties suffered some sort of structural damage from the hurricane.

Hurricane Sally arrived a little more than a month before Zeta. That hurricane, with sustained winds of 105 mph, arrived ashore in Gulf Shores on September 16, 2020. Its slow-moving trek created treacherous flooding conditions – 30 inches of rain were reported in Orange Beach – and the storm’s damaging effects were compared throughout Baldwin County to Hurricane Ivan, the powerful Category 3 storm that devastated the county in 2004.

“Hurricanes Sally and Zeta created a lot of damage to our coastal areas and other parts of Alabama from which many counties, cities, towns and residents have yet to fully recover,” Ivey said in a statement. “This program will bring some closure and relief for people whose lives were affected by these storms.”

The plans each government agency is working on are expected to address the needs of low-income homeowners and landlords with rental homes while also assisting with infrastructure and economic development projects and projects to help minimize damage from future storms.

The planning money comes from a $501 million the state got from the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief program allocated by Congress last fall and distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

CDBG recovery funds resulting from the hurricanes will also be issued later to Clarke, Dallas, Escambia, Marengo, Perry, Washington and Wilcox counties. Each of those counties were also designated by HUD as most impacted by the hurricanes.

ADECA is charged with administering the grants. The agency is also managing the Home Recovery Alabama program from the pot of recovery funds to help homeowners with repairs and construction projects for single-family homes that suffered damage from one or both storms.

Over half of the money allocated by the federal government is going to this program, $280 million. Of that, 95% must be spent in the most impacted counties and 100% will go to low or moderate-income families.

The money has been described as a “last resort” for storm damage rehabilitation on projects that were not funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), through insurance carriers or other sources.