The CNMI has been awarded a combined $308 million to recover from the 2018 Super Typhoon Yutu and Typhoon Mangkhut, and $40.8 million for the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Patrick Guerrero of the Public Assistance Office.<\/p>\n
Speaking at an informal meeting yesterday with members of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee in the House chamber, Guerrero, who is also the Governor\u2019s Authorized Representative for COVID-19, also disclosed that the CNMI also received under his watch $77.5 million for hazard mitigation projects related to Super Typhoons Soudelor and Yutu, Typhoon Mangkhut, and COVID-19.<\/p>\n
Ways and Means Committee vice chair Rep. Corina L. Magofna (Ind-Saipan) called for the \u201cinformal meeting\u201d with Guerrero to obtain a status update from the Public Assistance Office regarding projects and reimbursement related to Mangkhut and Yutu. <\/p>\n
For the $77.5-million hazard mitigation grant program, Guerrero said that some of that amount has already been awarded, and some are still being reviewed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
\n\u201cBut at the end of the day, that will be added to the\u2026I guess\u2026federally funded projects under disaster recovery,\u201d Guerrero said.
\nHe said the CNMI has been awarded $308 million for the two disasters: $302 million via the Super Typhoon Yutu declaration, and $6.7 million for Typhoon Mangkhut. <\/p>\n
With respect to COVID-19, of the $40.8 million awarded, there are still about $22.5 million pending obligation they hope to receive in the next 30 days, Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
He said an additional $20 million is pending FEMA\u2019S review. \u201cThat brings it up to around $85 million if my math is correct,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
He said that, overall, based on Public Assistance Office information received from Homeland Security for reimbursements related to COVID, their tracking is that they\u2019re just below the $100-million mark in expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we do is we track actual costs versus contracts,\u201d Guerrero said.
\nHe said they still have a lot of accounting to do with the obligation of contracts. <\/p>\n
Guerrero said as they close out before the end of this year, they still look forward to receiving about $7.2 million that will go to the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. in the form of reimbursement for actual costs that they incurred in response to Super Typhoon Soudelor in 2015.
\nFor Super Typhoon Yutu, CUC alone is expecting about another $15 million to be awarded to it, he added. Guerrero said this would cover labor and equipment that CUC used during the disaster recovery period.
\nHe said they have not received those reimbursement requests yet from CUC, but they were getting ready to submit those.<\/p>\n
Guerrero said Homeland Security is also doing the final reconciliation on their emergency work for Yutu to get $4 million in reimbursement.
\nHe said they still have a couple of projects to close out from seven years ago, from the 2015 Super Typhoon Soudelor disaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot much. But we should be closing this disaster,\u2026before the end of this year,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n
He noted that the average for states and territories to close out a disaster is about seven to eight years. \u201cYutu might take us around that timeline, just because it was a very large event for us as well. But most of the work we\u2019re focusing on these days are those two disasters\u2014Mangkhut and Yutu,\u201d Guerrero said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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