Spanish Fork is poised to receive a lift from the federal government as it continues to financially recover from last year’s flood damages.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Thursday announced plans to send $1.2 million to help the city with May 2023 flood repairs. The funding was part of a major disaster declaration President Joe Biden made for five Utah counties last year.

Spanish Fork Emergency Manager Trevor Sperry told the Daily Herald the city is still in the process for final approval to receive the funds but is grateful for the aid.

“We’re going to recoup the funds and they will help us get back to square one, where we were before, and not so much in the hole,” Sperry said.

Everything that was damaged from flooding last year already has been fixed and is operational, Sperry said, but the money will be used as reimbursement for expenses and reallocated to city departments that were impacted the most, such as the water and street departments.

FEMA agreed to cover 75% of the cost of qualifying damages that occurred during May 2023, splitting the expenses into four projects the city worked to get approved individually.

The greatest expense was repairing a drinking water pipeline that fell into the Spanish Fork River due to a high volume of water from snow runoff that eroded the bank and exposed the line.

“We had to do some emergency stabilization work and bring in what are called ripraps, big boulders to stabilize the banks and protect the water line,” Sperry said.

In total, Sperry said the city spent over $3 million in flooding expenses; however, much of that money went toward flood preparation work, which took place prior to May and therefore was not eligible to be included in the disaster assistance fund.

The process to receive FEMA funding began with Spanish Fork working closely with Utah County Emergency Management to assure the county met the minimum threshold for federal aid. FEMA approved Utah County over $10 million, Sperry estimated.

“There were only three or four communities in Utah County that were impacted, but then Utah County itself had some property and facilities that were damaged as well, and so we met the threshold for that dollar amount of damage that FEMA had created,” Sperry said. “Some counties requested assistance, but they didn’t meet that threshold for the cost and so they didn’t fall under the project.”

From there, Sperry and Spanish Fork worked directly with FEMA, sending information over to the agency to get each of the four projects approved. Approved funds will be sent from FEMA to the state of Utah, then from the state to Spanish Fork.

“We have some rainy day funds for things like this,” Sperry said, “but you can never know how much it’s going to impact you financially and otherwise. (The aid) will help us get back to where we want to be.”