Alaska holds $357.7M in open FEMA disaster grants, 21.7 percent paid, with all written to end Sept. 30

Alaska holds $357.7 million in open federal disaster grants, and $77.6 million of it, 21.7 percent, has been paid out, federal award records show. Every one of the eleven grants is currently written to end September 30, 2026, six weeks from Wednesday.

Across the eleven grants, the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs has already assigned $316.2 million to 534 named projects. What separates assignment from payment is largely the work itself. Under 44 CFR 206.205, large projects are reimbursed after the fact: the state must certify the approved work was completed, and each is submitted only after the subrecipient has finished and requested payment. Small projects are paid on approval of the project worksheet, and advances are permitted. A low paid share therefore measures how much construction is finished and closed out as much as how fast money moves.

That does not explain everything. The oldest open grant covers a September 2012 storm. It carries $17.7 million, has paid $2.7 million, and stands at 15.4 percent thirteen and a half years after the declaration. A grant for November 2013 storms holds $28.8 million and has paid $2.8 million, or 9.6 percent, with $28.7 million assigned across 45 projects.

Merbok's grant stands at 15 percent of $90.9 million paid, four years after the 2022 storm. FEMA reported in a July 2024 release that $108.8 million had been approved to help Alaska communities rebuild from Merbok. The records at hand do not reconcile the two totals. The newest grant, for the remnants of Typhoon Halong declared in October 2025, has paid 1.3 percent. The Municipality of Anchorage told its Assembly in May 2024 that 34 of its 2018 earthquake projects remained open, with 20 of those open because of scope-of-work changes needed for closeout.

The largest grant is the November 2018 Anchorage earthquake at $186.3 million, with $49.7 million paid, or 26.7 percent, across 291 subawards worth $173.5 million. The biggest single project is $16.5 million to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough for Houston Middle School, followed by $13.2 million to the Municipality of Anchorage, $8.2 million to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and $7.4 million to Alaska Pacific University.

The Merbok list reads as a map of the western coast: Nome at $7 million, Elim at $6.9 million, Teller at $6.6 million, Hooper Bay at $6.5 million, Stebbins at $6.4 million, the Native Village of Shaktoolik at $4.4 million, Koyuk at $2.8 million and Alakanuk at $1.7 million.

One grant has barely moved. An August 2015 coastal storm produced $1.7 million for the North Slope Borough across six projects. It has paid $6,176, or four-tenths of one percent, eleven years later. It received a new project assignment in June 2026. Two grants, for August 2024 landslides and an October 2024 storm, show no projects assigned and nothing paid. Storms in October and November 2021 are the exception at 88.8 percent paid.

Federal rules set a much shorter clock. Under 44 CFR 206.204, the deadline runs from the declaration date: six months for debris clearance and emergency work, eighteen months for permanent work. The state may add six and thirty months on its own authority, an outer limit of four years. Beyond that a FEMA regional administrator decides, and the regulation states that if a project is not completed, no federal funding will be provided for it.

The Alaska Federation of Natives said in a September 2022 statement that storm damage itself hampers the ability of Tribes to meet federal grant obligations, and asked for extended deadlines while communities recover.

The award records do not say whether the September 30 dates are firm or routine annual extensions. No state or FEMA explanation appears in them.