FY 2012 Disaster Relief Opportunity

Through this Disaster Relief Opportunity, EDA intends to award investments in regions experiencing severe economic distress as a result of natural disasters that were declared as major Federal disasters between October 1, 2010 and September 30, 2011. Under this announcement, EDA solicits applications for Economic Adjustment Assistance (EAA) investments under PWEDA. The EAA program provides recipients with flexible tools to develop and implement regionally based long term economic development strategies in response to major Federally declared disasters. The EAA program provides a wide range of technical, disaster recovery, economic recovery planning, and public works assistance. It responds adaptively to pressing economic recovery issues and is well-suited to help address challenges faced by regions affected by natural disasters. Through this program, EDA can support the development of disaster recovery strategies and recovery implementation, including infrastructure improvements and by using revolving loan funds (RLFs). EDA recognizes that urgent infrastructure rebuilding needs exist throughout disaster impacted regions. In EDA’s experience with post disaster recovery, the most effective long-term rebuilding efforts are based on long-term development or redevelopment strategies. For this reason, EDA encourages the submission of applications based on long-term, regionally oriented and collaborative economic development or redevelopment strategies that foster economic growth and resiliency. EDA will regard applications that are substantively supported by such strategies as more competitive, while applications for rebuilding damaged infrastructure that are not demonstrably supported by a long-term plan for economic growth and resilience will not be considered competitive. To be competitive, applications must clearly incorporate principles for enhancing the resiliency (as defined in section I.C. of the FY 12 Disaster Relief FFO) of the relevant community/region or demonstrate the integration of resiliency principles into the investment itself. The incorporation of disaster resiliency is an essential aspect of mitigating the potential for future losses and adverse economic impacts for communities. The inclusion of resiliency principles in the project is a necessary step to improve the capacity of the region to recover more quickly in the future. In addition, applicants must demonstrate a clear nexus between their proposed project scope of work and disaster recovery and resiliency efforts. The strength of the nexus to the disaster is drawn from the consequences of the disaster(s) that made the community eligible and the intended project outcomes. As noted above, please read the FY 12 Disaster Relief FFO carefully for all of EDA’s eligibility and program requirements under this announcement. The FFO is provided as an attachment to this synopsis and a link to the FFO is provided below.