Gov. DeSantis announces $20M for Resilient Florida Program to help mitigate flooding

Gov. Ron DeSantis hosted a news conference at Lovers Key State Park in Lee County Tuesday afternoon to announce grant funding in an effort to protect Florida from storm surge.

Grants total nearly $20 million in state funds for the Resilient Florida Program Planning Grants.

This funding will support 98 awards to develop or update comprehensive vulnerability assessments in inland and coastal communities. The list of projects awarded can be found here along with an application portal for Resilient Florida Planning Grants.

Vulnerability assessments are required to assess and identify critical infrastructure at risk of flooding from sea-level rise, storm surge, and rainfall events.

The assessments assist local communities in prioritizing and developing implementation strategies and projects designed to reduce, alleviate or mitigate the effects of flooding.

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2021-2022 budget included funding to support the most significant investment in the state’s history — over $640 million — to increase efforts to ensure state and local communities are prepared to deal with the impacts of sea-level rise, intensified storms and flooding. Today’s announcement follows the award of grants totaling over $404 million for 113 environmental resilience projects across the state, earlier this year.

In December, Governor DeSantis announced the state’s first-ever Flooding Resilience Plan which proposes 76 projects across the state totaling over $270 million, which was fully funded during the 2022 legislative session. DEP accepted applications through their online portal through September 1, 2021. A list of projects in the plan can be found here.

Current grant funding totals include $590,957 for Charlotte County, $900,000 for Collier County and an unlisted $528,000 for Lee County.