LOOKING AT DAMAGE: Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and First Gentleman Bryan Sanders survey storm damage in Cave City on Saturday, March 15, 2025. | Photo by Becca Paschal/Arkansas Governor’s Office
By AINSLEY PLATT | Arkansas Advocate
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders authorized $6 million to go towards hazard mitigation efforts through an executive order on Aug. 22.
The funds will be used “to implement approved mitigation projects within the state,” the executive order states.
The money comes from the governor’s Hazard Mitigation Fund, and is for the current fiscal year. Sanders previously authorized the same amount for the 2025 fiscal year, which ended in June. State law says money from the fund is to be used solely for hazard mitigation.
The Arkansas Division of Emergency Management handles hazard mitigation funding and planning, which the agency’s website says is “key to breaking the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage.”
The funding can be used for, among other things, replacing or rerouting public facilities such as roads, public buildings, bridges or public or private nonprofit property that have been affected by natural disasters such as storms or flooding.
Severe weather has walloped the state in recent years, with multiple destructive tornadoes carving paths through Central, Northeast and North Arkansas since 2023. A “generational” rainfall event in April, which was worsened by climate change, saw nearly three months worth of rain fall in the span of days and cause widespread flooding and damage.
Sanders’ request for federal disaster assistance for a tornado outbreak in March that struck Cave City and other Northeast Arkansas communities was initially denied by the Trump administration — which has said states need to take on more of the burdens of responding to natural disasters — before it was later approved after an appeal.
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