Happy New Year! 

Greetings from DEMA's Natural Hazards Section (Josh, Erin, Loren, and Karen)! We are entering the New Year with some joyous news to announce - Loren Reed (Mitigation Project Manager) welcomed her baby boy, Oliver, on December 18th. Congratulations to Loren and her family! Loren will return in March.

In 2019 you helped us meet mitigation and recovery planning goals, and we also closed out the Public Assistance grant for DR-4265-DE (Winter Storm Jonas, 2016). We are setting our sights even higher for 2020. 

In 2020 we will be offering more training/workshops, including training for: resilience planning, mitigation, procurement, and debris monitoring. 

For now, we would like to highlight a few resources and key pieces of information that have come out in the past several weeks or so, and/or will be coming out shortly: 

• FEMA has updated their PDAT Field Manual for Procurement Information for FEMA Public Assistance Award Recipients and
  Subrecipients.
• FEMA is in the process of updating the Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide (PAPPG), which is anticipated to be released in the next month.
• Per the September 2019 memo signed by FEMA's Assistant Administrator of the Recovery Directorate, Grants Portal is the required processing system for pre-award development and review of Public Assistance projects. If you have a question about how to create your organization's profile in Grants Portal, please contact Erin at 302-659-2204. 
• Per Section 1212 of the Disaster Recovery and Reform Act of 2018, FEMA has provided two separate maximum grant amounts for Other Needs Assistance and Housing Assistance under the Individual Assistance program (each at $35,500). 
• For Public Assistance (PA), the FY20 State Per Capita Indicator has gone up to $1.53 and the County Per Capita Indicator to $3.84.
• In November, FEMA released new Consensus based Codes, Specifications, and Standards for Public Assistance Interim Policy
• FEMA held a series of webinars on the new Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) reforms. The webinars may be found here. Additional information on BRIC will become available in the coming months. 
• FEMA has updated policies on Management Costs for Public Assistance and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).
• NOAA Office of Response & Restoration's Marine Debris Program will be releasing an emergency response guide for marine debris in Delaware in the Spring. The guide is being developed with input from agencies and organizations across the state. 
• FY18 mitigation projects (PDM & FMA) continue to be awarded. Thank you for being patient as we work to set up kick-off meetings. If you have any questions, please contact Karen at 302-659-2249.