Dawson Springs is still on the long road to recovery after the Western Kentucky community was devastated by the December 2021 tornado outbreak. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a loan to help fund essential services in the wake of that disaster, but city officials say their access to those dollars has been frozen.
The deadly, destructive storm system killed 14 people in the Hopkins County town and destroyed or seriously damaged north of 70% of its residences, decimating its tax base.
Money from the Team Western Kentucky Tornado Relief Fund and the state’s SAFE Fund programs has helped Dawson Springs take major steps toward recovery, but the city government has been relying on federal Community Disaster Loan dollars to cover the costs of its services — like its police force, garbage pickup and street department — since January.
Dawson Springs Mayor Jenny Sewell said during a March city council meeting that executive actions from President Donald Trump’s administration have put the community in a bind, making those funds inaccessible.
A $715,768 federal loan through FEMA’s CDL program was approved in 2023. Sewell said the city only just started to draw on those funds this winter, using $183,400 in CDL funds to pay for Dawson Springs’ January and February expenditures. When the city tried to use a little under $66,000 from the loan in March, they hit a snag.
Sewell said that a FEMA representative told her that “additional steps” — including an investigation — would be required before Dawson Springs could access the funds in the wake of Trump’s executive orders to freeze federal grants, including disaster aid through FEMA.
“They’ve asked us to please stand by while they investigate. The problem with please standing by is we’ve only got three months of fiscal liquidity left, so that’s all got to be done in a very ferocious fashion,” Sewell said.
Sewell said that the city’s revenues in the wake of the tornado were in a “very deep spiral,” and that these funds are essential to keeping the city’s services running.
“Well, it could be several ramifications. First of all, I mean, obviously it could be loss of services,” Sewell said. “We’re not advocating for that at this moment. We’re hoping that they will go ahead and do their investigation and reinstate this.”
Kentucky and federal emergency management officials were unable to confirm to WKMS the reason that the loan funds specifically would be included in the grant freeze. A FEMA spokesperson indicated on Monday that, at the direction of U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, “FEMA has implemented additional controls to ensure that all grant program activity is consistent with law and does not promote fraud, waste or abuse, as it has in the past.” FEMA is housed within the Department of Homeland Security.
Sewell said she has been told by Kentucky Emergency Management leadership that federal guidance suggests the situation will be resolved and that Dawson Springs would be cleared to draw from its CDL funding, but that a timeline was unclear. Kentucky Emergency Management did not return a request for comment.
Since the disaster, more than 100 homes have been rebuilt in Dawson Springs and the city has plans to rebuild its park. Sewell said these funds are key for the city to get back on its feet as its recovery continues.
“The community of Dawson Springs has made wonderful strides, and we are at a critical point in our history when we desperately need this community disaster loan funding to get us through just the next spark that we need until we can pick up on our own,” she said. “It’s critical for this community.”
(This story first ran on WKMS, the public radio station at Murray State University.)
