DOT and DHS Offer Funding and Other Assistance for Ports to Improve Disaster Resilience
The U.S. Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Homeland Security (DHS) have recently provided funding opportunities to ports and their surrounding communities through various grants. For these seven related grant programs, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified grant selection criteria in 2024 correlated to natural disaster resilience in recent funding notices for the five competitive programs that used these types of notices.
According to GAO, GAO found the extent that the federally awarded projects at ports improved natural disaster resilience is not fully known. According to DOT and DHS officials, a key reason for this is that port projects often result in increased resilience against natural disasters, even if they have a different primary goal such as combatting terrorism or addressing cybersecurity. For example, one of GAO’s selected ports received a grant to relocate a security checkpoint gate and install a new gate operating system. In doing so, port representatives said the gate was moved away from a flood zone, thus increasing resilience against flooding. Officials added that the statutes authorizing federal funding programs do not require the federal agencies to track whether funded projects improved disaster resilience.
Federal agencies have developed several resilience related frameworks and risk assessment guidance that ports and stakeholders could use to identify natural disaster vulnerabilities and improve port resilience. Some guidance is for port authorities to enable them to score their port’s resilience, while other guidance is for entire communities that may include a port. Ports may choose whether to use federal guidance and tools to create risk assessments. Of the seven port authorities GAO spoke with, five had assessed and documented risks for various reasons. For example, representatives from a coastal port that is affected by hurricanes told GAO they conduct a risk assessment to identify vulnerabilities and determine operational resilience, and for insurance purposes. Representatives from another coastal port said that their plan lists operating procedures based on the severity of an earthquake, since that is their biggest natural hazard. Federal agencies have also established multiple coordination mechanisms and provide training opportunities to ports and their stakeholders that might improve resilience.
