North Carolina's Office of Recovery and Resiliency is one step closer to securing $542 million to help people affected by Hurricane Florence.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently released details of a federal register notice which allows the state to move forward with developing a draft action plan. Once the plan is approved, NCORR can use the funds to step up repairs, reconstruction, and elevation of homes through the ReBuild NC Program.
The federal register notice also provides spending guidelines that require the state to spend 80 percent of the funds in areas hit hard by the 2018 storm. Brunswick, Carteret, Columbus, Craven, Duplin, Jones, New Hanover, Onslow, Pender and Robeson counties were identified as the most impacted and distressed areas. The federal register notice also listed the most impacted zip codes as 28352 in Scotland County, 28390 in Cumberland County, 28433 in Bladen County and 29571 in Pamlico County.
According to a news release from Governor Roy Cooper's office, a draft action plan is expected to be completed by next month. After a 30-day comment period, HUD will review the action plan before funds can be spent. So far, North Carolina has spent $3.3 billion in total state and federal funding to help residents recover from Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence.
