States seek flood repairs in budget
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Renita Jablonski: The Mississippi River continues to threaten homes and businesses in Midwest. The weather forecast calls for more heavy rains, and that could cause a second round of flooding. While the waters have yet to recede, many are already thinking about reconstruction. Marketplace’s Jeff Tyler has more.
Jeff Tyler: The American Red Cross offers more than emergency relief. Spokesperson Laura Howe says the organization helps flood victims identify recovery services.
Laura Howe: If you’ve never been a disaster victim before and you’ve never really had to ask anyone for help, you don’t know where to go to get it.
For the states, the challenge isn’t finding services, but a way to pay for them.
Jared Bernstein: They don’t really have the resources available to help them dig their way out of this problem.
That’s Jared Bernstein with the Economic Policy Institute. He says states in the Midwest were having trouble balancing their budgets before the floods. Now they’re looking at massive infrastructure repairs.
Bernstein: Road repairs, the hospitals, the playgrounds, the schools — that’s where you see state budgets already pinched before this stuff even hit. And I think that’s where federal relief will be the most important.
Bernstein estimates that flood damage will run into the billions.
I’m Jeff Tyler for Marketplace.
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