On September 19, 2016, Governor Terry McAuliffe announced the awarding of $5.7 million in federal funds for 99 projects enhancing emergency preparedness and security throughout the Commonwealth. Several Hampton Roads localities and the HRPDC are recipients of these funds.

The Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) received 143 grant requests totaling more than $16 million, however only $2.6 million was available to allocate to localities from this year’s State Homeland Security Program (SHSP). Additionally, more than $555,000 was re-programmed from the National Capital Region Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) and Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness grant programs to fund 7 projects.

The Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) will administer the funds to support the ability of local governments to sustain a wide array of emergency preparedness and security operations, equipment replacement, training, planning and exercise programs.

“Whether it was the Pentagon on 9/11, Hurricane Isabel in 2003, and Snowmageddon in 2010, our first responders and local law enforcement agencies have been essential in protecting Virginians each and every time they are called on,” said Governor McAuliffe. “These grants will provide vital support to communities across the Commonwealth, and I am confident that they will go a long way toward building a stronger and more resilient Virginia.”

Governor McAuliffe’s public safety and homeland security team initiated a stakeholder-driven inclusive grant process to determine how the grants were allocated this year. Public safety partners from around the state determined the priorities for this year’s grant process, and nearly 150 local leaders from emergency management, law enforcement, fire and rescue, and EMS participated as peer-reviewers to grade and rank projects. Old Dominion University assisted with scoring the graded proposals, based on a benefit-cost ratio, as requested by the public safety stakeholders. 

The grants have been awarded as follows:

Of the 66 projects valued at $2.6 million that will receive funding from the SHSP based on competitive assessment by peer reviewers, these are the six regional HRPDC projects receiving funding.

Of the remaining 60 projects, these 14 Hampton Roads locality projects received funding.

An additional $2.6 million was allocated in non-competitive grants from the SHSP to fund 26 projects sustaining 12 hazardous materials teams, six technical rescue teams, three incident management teams, four Virginia radio communications caches and the Virginia Fusion Center.  Projects in Chesapeake, Newport News, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach received funding as part of this allocation.