 Floods, severe storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves, and other catastrophes, all of these can cause serious damage to highways and roads. In order to quickly repair the damage to roads on the federal aid systems, Congress has set up an emergency fund. The emergency relief program is like an insurance policy to help pay for repairing serious damage to the nation's most important roads. The Federal Highway Administration administers this program through state highway agencies. In addition to funding for state roads, funds also are made available to counties and cities for damaged federal aid roads they maintain. Since the program's inception in 1958, over $2 billion have been used from this fund to repair damaged highways on the federal aid systems. The cost to repair damages in an average disaster where emergency relief funds are used is about $6 million. This videotape presentation will discuss how the emergency relief program works for roads on the federal aid systems. The emergency relief program is for two kinds of damage. Damage due to natural disaster and damage due to a catastrophic failure. These will be discussed in a few minutes. Of course, emergency relief funds will not necessarily be available for all damage repair costs. For instance, there's a $100 million limit for any single disaster in any one state. Also, emergency relief funds are not to take the place of other federal aid, state or local funds for new construction. Emergency relief funds are not meant for increasing capacity. They are not for correcting non-disaster related deficiencies, nor for otherwise improving highway facilities. Before emergency relief funds can be used, the Federal Highway Administrator must make a finding. This is done by a review of the damages, as documented by a field report. A good field report is essential to this effort. And let's assume that a significant disaster has occurred. The first thing to be done, of course, is to protect the public welfare. But a public official's first consideration is the safety of the public. Public should start immediately to get the affected roads open to traffic. Then as soon as time permits, the state highway agency should send a notice of intent to the Federal Highway Administration's division administrator. The application may be only a notice that the state is seeking emergency relief funds. It does not need to specify the amount or other details. The Federal Highway Administration division office will acknowledge the state's letter of intent in writing. This assures the state that temporary operations, emergency repairs and preliminary engineering may proceed without prior authorization. The state, local agencies and the Federal Highway Administration's division office should complete a disaster assessment to decide if a situation might qualify for emergency relief. This will evaluate the extent of the natural disaster or magnitude of catastrophic failure. When serious damage has occurred to highways and bridges on federal aid systems, the governor issues a disaster proclamation. The state highway agency often prepares information for the governor's proclamation. Then if emergency relief is approved, the state handles the work much like regular federal aid, except on an emergency expedited basis. Counties and cities have frontline responsibility for roads they maintain. Reopening roads to traffic is the first priority. As soon as possible, local officials should contact the state highway agency. Usually this will be part of their emergency preparedness plan coordinated by civil defense officials. Just like a deductible clause on an insurance policy, the ER program is not going to fully fund all damage. In some cases, not at all. As a result, state and local highway agencies can expect budget impacts and changes in project priorities, as well as inconvenience to motorists. How then can we decide when federal emergency relief funds are appropriate for a particular disaster? One way is to determine if damage costs are unusually high. This is a measure of the extent of damage. If a state's total estimated cost of work necessary to correct potential emergency relief eligible sites is less than $500,000 for a disaster, this indicates relatively minor damage. This and most other aspects of the program are outlined in detail in the Emergency Relief Disaster Assistance Manual. It's available by contacting the Federal Highway Administration's division office in your state. We mentioned earlier that there are two major types of damage covered by the Emergency Relief Program. Damage from unnatural disaster and damage from catastrophic failure. To qualify, a natural disaster must have caused serious highway damage over a widespread area. If it's confined to a localized situation, or if it's a frequent or anticipated occurrence, the state should look for other sources of funds. A catastrophic failure must be due to an external cause. It must not be the result of an inherent flaw in the facility. It must be a sudden occurrence which results in road closure. An eligible catastrophic failure causes a disastrous impact on transportation services. Here are two points to look for in a natural disaster situation. Was the natural occurrence sudden, unusual, and did it cause serious damage to federal aid facilities? And did the serious damage to federal aid facilities extend over a wide area? State and local agencies can do most of the assessment without Federal Highway Administration input. However, Washington Headquarters requires independent Federal Highway Administration verification of at least one site of significant eligible damage in each county recommended for emergency relief funding. Experience has shown that it's best to have a set system for documenting damage estimates and preparing the division office field report. Here's an example of a scenario for documenting damage estimates and preparing the field report. An engineer from the Division Administrator's staff should coordinate the Federal Highway Administration's activities relating to disaster assistance programs. Soon after a disaster occurs, the Division Disaster Coordination Engineer should arrange a meeting to brief field engineers on resources and procedural requirements, eligibility, and field reporting procedures. Evaluation teams also should be organized. Being set up by the State Highway Agency should be encouraged. The State should invite all the federal, state, and local agencies which are involved. At the meeting, eligibility and field reporting procedures should be discussed, as well as record keeping methods. After the initial reviews and assessments are done, the field report should be assembled by the Division Office. The report is to describe the extent of the emergency situation. It serves to delineate the limits of serious damage to federal aid highway facilities. Any emergency relief application of $500,000 or less should have a special justification. The repair involved must be beyond the scope of heavy maintenance or routine emergency repair. The field report should show enough detail to describe the type of damage. It should include maps and color photographs showing eligible damage for each affected county. State and local agencies can help considerably if they have early photos and records available. When it's apparent that the administrator will approve use of emergency relief funds, the State and Division Office should organize disaster inspection teams to make detailed site reviews. These teams should be headed by a Federal Highway Administration field engineer and should document each site's repair requirements by conducting a detailed inspection. This raises the question of how to decide whether a site is eligible or ineligible for ER. The emergency relief program supplements the efforts of highway agencies through financial participation in repairs that are beyond those normally done. ER funds won't fix every site. The ER program does provide for the repair of highway facilities to pre-disaster conditions. Therefore, most of the ER work will be restoration in kind. These replacements are handled differently. ER reimbursement for a replacement bridge would be the cost of a new bridge. The new bridge would be built to current design standards for the type and volume of traffic carried during its design life. In the emergency relief program, there's a category defined as betterments. This might be an additional feature, upgrading, or change in capacity or character of a roadway from its pre-disaster condition. Our funding of betterments is generally disallowed. Some examples of betterments approved in the past include riprap, roadway relocation, increased waterway opening, slope stabilization, dyke construction, and raised roadway elevations. The emergency relief program does not pay for snow removal, emergency transportation services, or compensation for economic losses, nor are emergency relief funds for losses of stockpiled material, maintenance equipment, or user fees. Eligible work may include the reconstruction of damaged highway facilities within right-of-way limits. Examples are pavement, fill-and-cut slopes, bridges, culverts, and retaining walls. The intent of ER funds is to correct new damage. ER money should not be used to repair roadways that have deteriorated from pre-existing and non-disaster related deficient conditions. For instance, damage due to traffic, even if the road was inundated, is not eligible. When a disaster has caused damage requiring heavy maintenance or requiring work frequently performed by the applicant's maintenance crews, repairs are not eligible. Heavy maintenance is work normally done by highway agencies in repairing damage expected from seasonal and occasionally unusual natural conditions. Now let's contrast some specific types of damage to better understand how to determine eligibility. Examples of inadmissible damage are eroded shoulders, filled-up culverts, minor slip-outs of embankments, minor erosion, and maintenance of detours. Sometimes, however, there's a lot of eligible damage, but some damage in the same area is marginal. Here, all the work may be made eligible rather than trying to split funds' small amounts of work. If a bridge goes out, a temporary structure or alternate existing route may be needed as a temporary connection. If this is not practical, a temporary ferry service may be eligible for emergency relief funds. However, normal administration and overhead costs are not eligible. The cost of replacement of traffic control devices, including automatic signals, might be allowed. Here, there would have to be evidence that the damage is serious in terms of traffic disruption over a long period of time. The replacement of destroyed highway landscaping is acceptable only if it represents incidental cost associated with otherwise eligible damage. What about that work that had to be done right as the disaster was happening? Temporary operations or emergency repairs often have to be done to restore essential traffic. These repairs cannot wait for a finding of eligibility or programming of a project. After necessary emergency repair work is completed, there are three criteria to decide what is eligible for emergency relief funds. Temporary operations and emergency repairs must be for reducing the extent of damage, protecting the remaining facilities, or restoring essential travel. Examples of temporary operations are regrading roadway surfaces, sandbagging roads atop levees, placing riprap around piers and bridge abutments to relieve severe scour action, removing piled up drift on bridges, building temporary detour bridges. Let's begin to wind up by discussing funding for a moment. This has been providing $100 million each year from the trust fund for emergency relief work. When the Federal Highway Administrator makes an affirmative finding on a state's request for ER, Federal Highway Administration headquarters allocates funds from the Highway Trust Fund for the disaster. The initial amount is that needed for the current fiscal year. Projects using emergency funds should be handled as emergencies. Emergency work is a categorical exclusion for environmental purposes. Special methods, such as negotiated contracts and force account work, can be used. Delay in the advancement of an approved emergency relief project to construction and completion within a reasonable time, usually no more than three years, could result in a cutoff of funding. Some work can be funded at a 100% federal share, namely emergency work, including temporary operations done in the first 90 days. States and local agencies should do permanent restoration work only after Federal Highway Administration authorization unless it's part of temporary operations. Permanent restorations and any other work done after the first 90 days is cost shared. The state and or local share is the same as for regular federal aid work. To summarize, several federal agencies may be involved with disaster assistance. When the state, a county or a city needs to reopen a federal aid road that has been closed by a disaster, temporary operations and emergency repair work should not be delayed. As soon as the administrator approves, ER funds can be used to pay agencies back for eligible emergency work that was done. The state requesting emergency relief funds must file a preliminary application with FHWA through the division administrator. The governor of the state must issue a proclamation declaring an emergency to be in effect unless the president has already done so. A favorable finding must be made by the Federal Highway Administrator. The basis of the finding will be the state's application, the signed or certified copy of the governor's proclamation and the field report. Upon approval by the administrator, 100% of the eligible emergency repairs done in the first 90 days can be reimbursed. Permanent restoration and any other eligible work done after the first 90 days is reimbursable from emergency relief sources at the federal share that would apply to regular federal aid work. Since its inception in 1958, the emergency relief program has assured that our nation's highway transportation network is quickly and effectively restored after being unexpectedly damaged. With cooperation of all levels of government, the emergency relief program will continue to serve this vital need.