Elderly, Disabled To Get Priority In Flood Recovery Plan

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) --€” Fixing flood-damaged homes owned by thousands of elderly or disabled residents would be Louisiana's first priority under a plan for spending the state's initial allocation of $400 million in federal flood recovery funds.

Only a fraction of the state's flood victims can benefit from the spending plan endorsed Friday by a task force formed by Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Edwards' administration estimates more than 112,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by floods in March and August. Pat Forbes, executive director of the state Office of Community Development, outlined a spending plan that could only pay for repairing roughly 4,000 homes owned by elderly or disabled residents.

Louisiana was initially allocated $437.8 million in federal grant money. Edwards is seeking a total of $4 billion in federal flood recovery funds.