Two years after Hurricane Helene, Giles and Pulaski counties will get millions in federal funding to mitigate damage that remains from the storm.
U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, announced this week that several localities in the New River Valley will receive more than $7.1 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Giles County will receive $2.3 million for Glen Lyn Park restorations, and the Peppers Ferry Regional Wastewater Treatment Authority in Pulaski County will get the largest amount, $4.6 million, for pump station repairs at its two wastewater facilities. Montgomery County will also get $129,897 for debris removal.
On Wednesday, Jon Butler, Giles County’s emergency service coordinator, remembered Helene in September 2024.
“It affected us the most on the 28th. On the 27th, we spent most of that day notifying some of our flood-prone areas that this flood is going to be the worst we’ve seen since 1940,” Butler said. In Giles County, 48 families were displaced with an estimated $36.4 million in damages.
As Cardinal News reported in July, Gov. Abigail Spanberger announced that more than $7.3 million in federal funds would be distributed across Giles and Washington counties and the town of Fries in Grayson County for housing rebuilds and repairs and infrastructure damaged by Hurricane Helene-related weather. That included $3.5 million to repair, rehabilitate, reconstruct and replace disaster-damaged homes for low- and moderate-income households.
This is the first time Giles County will get funding for the park restoration. Before the hurricane, the 15-acre park was a full-service RV campground, according to Butler. Now, it is only partially open to the public for daylight-time activities.
The Virginia Department of Emergency Services will provide a 19% match on the project costs, with the remaining 6% covered by the county.
“Priorities, naturally, in a federally declared disaster, are the individuals first,” said Butler when asked if the relief could have arrived earlier. Providing aid and resources to residents affected was the focus before the county began to seek funding to repair the damage of government property — through the FEMA public assistance program.
To qualify for public assistance funding for a large project, the threshold in 2024 was set at $1,037,000, according to FEMA’s website. The restoration project for Glen Lyn Park will cost an estimated $3.1 million, which will go toward rebuilding infrastructure such as access to water and electricity at the camping lots and rebuilding two pumps at the central sewer station that distributed wastewater to the nearby treatment plant.
Pump station repairs at two wastewater facilities
Repairing damaged infrastructure was also the goal for the Peppers Ferry Regional Wastewater Treatment Authority when it applied for federal funding for repairing damaged equipment at the Radford and New River pump stations.
“What that means for our community members is that they don’t get the loss of critical services like wastewater,” said facility Executive Director Ryan Hendrix, “which means that we’re not having overflows of sanitary sewer into the river and we continue to treat and discharge it into the New River as clean water.”
Because of its more than $4.6 million large project status, Hendrix says that a team of several engineers were needed to assess the damaged assets and ensure the right amount of funding could be acquired.
“Once you have a pump station flood, it’s everything from the electrical outlets to $100,000 pumps that are being affected,” said Hendrix, “that was the sheer amount of assets that were damaged that ended up causing it to be a longer process.”
An official start date has not been identified for the start of the Glen Lyn Park restoration, said Butler, but the funding is under a total reimbursement program, so the county must spend the money first before it can be reimbursed.
“The community has been very interested in that project, and they want to see that part rebuilt,” Butler said.
One affected locality in the region is still seeking relief funds — Grayson County is reporting issues with the state and federal government that are stalling FEMA funding, according to a spokesperson for Griffith’s office, Jackson Krug. The specific needs for the funding were not made immediately available.
