(Radio Iowa) – State officials should be done by next week with their analysis of a northwest Iowa city’s newly-combined request for FEMA funding to buy 150 homes hit by flooding 18 months ago. Tom Van Maanen, the city administrator in Rock Valley, says the lives of many residents remain on hold, waiting to learn if their property qualifies for a buyout. “The purpose of the end of the year update, where things are currently sitting, the program’s still moving forward,” Van Maanen says. “It’s been disappointingly slow.” State officials determined Rock Valley’s original project that included 122 properties would not score high enough on FEMA’s cost-benefit analysis to qualify for federal funding.

Twenty-eight other flooded homes in Rock Valley that were part of a separate buy-out request are being folded into one application to FEMA for a total of 150 properties. Van Maanen says FEMA requires layers of technical review of each property and once state officials determine the score for the overall project is high enough, Rock Valley will submit its updated request to FEMA. “When this project is finally handed back to us, we’re poised to hit the ground the running and move this thing along very fast and get the people the help they need,” Van Maanen said. The goal of FEMA’s buy-out program for flooded properties is to reduce future flooding risks.

Van Maanen says it’s been frustrating to navigate through a grant program that does not have deadlines. “Even if you give a person a date that seems too far out, at least it would be a date, but that is not how this process works with FEMA,” Van Maanen said. “It is at their schedule, but we know we’re close. We’re really at the final steps of it, but unfortunately that doesn’t translate into them giving us a hard date when we’ll know.”

If state officials determine the cost-benefit score for buying-out all 150 properties still would fall below FEMA’s requirements, Van Maanen says the state will work with Rock Valley officials to identify which properties may need to be removed from the application to ensure that the remaining properties can be approved.