BUFFALO, New York — Local governments are still waiting on promises of federal funding to help cover expenses after the deadly December Blizzard of 2022.
Overall there are new calls for federal aid when snow slams areas like Western New York.
As we have heard from a variety of government officials in recent years - the phrase "no dough for snow" has been repeated as summing up their concerns that the people who run FEMA - the Federal Emergency Management Agency just do not consider a major snowstorm to be quite in the same disaster as a hurricane or tornado or even wildfires.
That mindset probably deals with the level of actual property damage from the weather event.
But here in Western New York lately local government and some state-level officials have been trying to change that tune by increasingly voicing their feeling that the increasing sums spent for snow removal with private contractors and even lost business revenue should help make an even stronger case for federal government compensation.
The deaths of 47 people in the December 2022 Blizzard was an even stronger factor to be passed along to the D.C. decision-makers.
So where do things stand with any federal funding to make up for even that killer Christmas weekend storm which of course made national headlines.? Mayor Byron Brown told 2 On Your Side Photojournalist Bill Boyer "We are still working on the December 2022 storm. The once in a generation blizzard we had. It takes a long time for that federal money to come."
Mayor Brown went on to say "I think the Federal government really needs to re - look at how it supports communities that get extreme weather - particularly heavy snowfall like many northeastern cities do."
Of course, we've heard that same observation for years.
Shortly after the December 2022 storm U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer - very powerful as majority leader - told reporters he would press FEMA not to delay funding and he would make that clear to the FEMA Administrator who he personally knew from New York City.
Erie County Executive Polonocarz said he asked President Biden in person and we did get the disaster declaration to authorize the funding flow. It was also announced by Governor Hochul that the state met the 36 Million dollar cost threshold level in 2022.
We checked and Erie County also still has not received any of that federal funding for the December 2022 blizzard event and a spokesman says their budget officials warn them that it's understood that FEMA reimbursement is measured in years and not months.
We will also seek some answers on where the funding sits in the federal distribution pipeline but not sure how much of an answer we'll get.