The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has announced a new round of Emergency Relief funding to help states repair roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure damaged by recent disasters.
The agency announced the funding round June 18, citing a total package amount of about $1.86 billion. The relief effort puts particular emphasis on Hurricane Helene recovery projects, with more than $908 million earmarked for projects tied to the storm.
The round distributes funds to more than two dozen states and territories and covers a mix of event types. These include hurricanes, atmospheric rivers, wildfires and third-party events like highway crashes or bridge collapses. Officials note the relief in this round only covers highways and bridges, not broader disaster areas like housing or utilities.
The round’s highest allocation of about $913.7 million goes to North Carolina, with $908 million of that tied to Helene. The storm hit in late September 2024 and caused catastrophic flooding and landslides across the western part of the state, damaging thousands of miles of roads and more than 1,000 bridges and culverts.
The state has estimated that statewide recovery, of which the road and bridge rebuild is only one part, could run into the tens of billions. With this round, the FHWA’s total Helene infrastructure commitment comes to about $3.4 billion across multiple states, with about $2.9 billion of that directed to North Carolina.
The recovery effort there is still in its early stages. State transportation crews have spent more than a year clearing debris, reopening routes and rebuilding washed-out roads. The current funding for the area builds on several previous rounds, bolstered by a 2012 federal law that removed a $100 million limit on what a single state could claim for one disaster.
Unlike the storm damage driving most of the round, the next largest allocation stems from a catastrophic failure—about $300 million earmarked for the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. The Baltimore bridge fell in March 2024 after a container ship lost power and struck a pier. The full rebuild is estimated at about $2 billion, with the project taking a design-build approach.
Where Maryland’s funds covered a singular event, California received about $260.7 million, spread across a long list of separate events going back several years. These include repeated atmospheric river storms, statewide winter storms and wildfire-related damage across the state.
Beyond the top three, notable recipients include Puerto Rico at about $90.8 million for a cluster of hurricane and storm events, with Arizona receiving $17.7 million. The agency specifically pointed to Arizona’s 2025 storms and flooding in Gila, Mohave and Pinal counties.
A state has up to two years from the date of a disaster to apply for funds, submitting a detailed list of eligible repair sites and costs at the time of application. The emergency relief fund works as a reimbursement program rather than an upfront grant, meaning states will front the cost of repair work while the FHWA pays back the eligible costs as projects move forward.
For the states on the list, the federal money covers most but not all of the cost. Emergency relief generally reimburses 90% of repair costs on interstates and 80% on other federal-aid highways, with the most urgent work eligible for full federal funding in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.
The balance falls to the states, which carry out the rebuilding by putting the work out to private contractors through their own procurement.
Photo by Connor Scott McManus from Pexels
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