Section 504 of the new 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, makes Tribes eligible as disaster-recovery grantees in their own right, and requires that Tribal-area impacts get factored into how disaster-recovery funding formulas are built going forward.

Here's why that's a big deal for us specifically: Nome's real housing threat isn't the kind of one-time flood or hurricane damage most federal disaster programs are built around. It's coastal erosion, storm surge, and permafrost thaw slowly undermining foundations and infrastructure over years, not overnight. Whether this provision's language actually stretches to cover that kind of slow-motion damage — versus a single catastrophic event — isn't clear yet from the bill text alone.

This is one we're watching rather than banking on. As HUD and the disaster-recovery offices put out more guidance, we'll be checking with the City's emergency management contacts and local Tribal housing entities to see how, or whether, this actually applies to erosion-driven housing loss in our region.

How did FEMA do with their response to Merbock? What concerns you most about our current emergency plan?