{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://abraham.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/avoyelles-police-jury-hopes-benefit-fema-aid", "Avoyelles Police Jury Hopes to Benefit from FEMA Aid", "2016-09-21", "2016", "2016-09", "Republican", "House", "LA", "Ralph Abraham", "A000374", "abraham.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Good news is hard to come by in these days of natural disasters and government financial crises, but the Avoyelles Police Jury is going to try their best to take advantage of one of those rare tidbits.\nJurors were informed that \u00a0FEMA has decided that local governments receiving federal assistance to repair damages or undertake projects to prevent future damage will only have to pay 10 percent of those costs instead of 25 percent.\nPolice Jury President Charles Jones said he and other parish officials attended a disaster assistance meeting with Gov. John Bel Edwards and FEMA officials in Baton Rouge recently. \u00a0A FEMA team has also met with parish officials concerning efforts in the parish.\nAt the Jury\u2019s Sept. 13 meeting, Jones said the parish is working with U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham\u2019s office to obtain funds under FEMA\u2019s \u201chazard mitigation\u201d program and he is optimistic that that aid will be provided.\u00a0\n\n\tIn a press release on that subject, Abraham called FEMA\u2019s decision \u201ca good first step.\u201d\n\tHowever, the 5th District congressman said he and others in the Louisiana delegation are \u201cworking with FEMA to determine why it did not grant a cost-share reduction for the more than 40,000 people flooded in March.\u201d\n\tHe said the March flood \u201caffected mostly rural parishes, whose already-limited resources have been stretched even thinner by historic flooding. We might not have gotten a presidential visit or a spotlight by the national media, but we still got 20-plus inches of rain that flooded our homes, churches, farms, businesses and schools, too.\u201d\n\tReducing the local matching costs from 25 percent to 10 percent for state and local governments for the earlier flood damage \u201cis the right thing to do,\u201d he added.\n\tTo read the full story click here.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://abraham.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/avoyelles-police-jury-hopes-benefit-fema-aid"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.746140118688345, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}