U.S. government grants Tennessee request for reimbursements
NASHVILLE — The U.S. government has granted Gov. Phil Bredesen’s request that Tennessee be reimbursed for money spent on Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
The federal funding will help the state continue to provide housing, food and water, health care and other essentials to evacuees from the Gulf Coast region.
“No one has a handle on how many people are going to stay here long-term,” Bredesen told The Associated Press on Monday. “I have been concerned with making sure that the short-term acute needs were met. In the long run, certainly for what I’ve seen, we’ll be fine.”
The federal funds will cover all money spent dating back to Aug. 29, when the state officially began activating the National Guard to help with relief efforts and making plans for sheltering evacuees. The funds will continue to be available to Tennessee until the emergency needs have been fully satisfied.
Until the reimbursements begin coming in, the state’s rainy-day fund will cover relief costs, Bredesen said. The federal reimbursement will cover 100 percent of approved relief spending, regardless of what the dollar amount ends up being.
Funds will be available to all 95 counties in the state, said Lydia Lenker, a spokeswoman for Bredesen, who made the federal reimbursement request Thursday.
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency officials say as many as 20,000 evacuees could be in the state, and federal officials advised the governor on Monday to expect up to another 6,000 to arrive starting Tuesday.
The bulk of evacuees are in Shelby County, but several other areas also are seeing an influx. Knoxville officials are making plans to accommodate at least 750 more evacuees this week, with most staying at the Civic Coliseum, said city spokeswoman Margie Nichols. The evacuees are expected to begin arriving Tuesday.
The state currently is housing 236 evacuees at National Guard facilities across the state, and the 1,000 being flown in Tuesday will go to armories in Milan and Tullahoma.
Most other evacuees are staying at Red Cross shelters, churches or in private homes with relatives and friends.
The federal reimbursements as well as private donations and work from volunteers has made the burden manageable for state and local governments, Bredesen said.
Under state law, the governor has power in emergencies to suspend some state laws to expedite medical and relief services to victims, which Bredesen has already taken advantage of through an executive order.
The order allows pharmacists to dispense a 30-day supply of medication to evacuees without proper authorization and medical personnel licensed in other states to treat evacuees in Tennessee.
The governor also is working to get some evacuees on TennCare, the state’s financially troubled expanded Medicaid program. Bredesen said the move won’t require additional state money because only those already receiving federally funded Medicaid benefits would be eligible.
TEMA spokesman Kurt Pickering said any strain on state and local agencies is being alleviated as TEMA moves resources around the state as needed.
“We can call on literally thousands (of people),” he said. “We can call on anyone in state government and anyone in local government under the law.”
Pickering said Tennessee was ready to go when called on because the state had a dress rehearsal last year.
“We kind of ramped up on it once before,” he said. “Last year for one of the four hurricanes, the U.S. Department of Transportation said that we might get as many as 30,000 people coming up from Georgia.”
That didn’t happen, but gearing up for the possible influx prepared state officials for what might be needed if faced with large numbers of evacuees.