City of Crisfield to Trump Administration: Return Promised BRIC Funds to Fight Sea Level Rise

Despite being the highest-scoring project nationwide awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) FY2023 program, the City of Crisfield, Maryland's $36 million flood mitigation project has been put on hold indefinitely because the Trump administration has terminated BRIC and cancelled the grant.

The project, developed with the support of FEMA's Direct Technical Assistance (DTA) initiative, was designed to protect the southern portion of Crisfield from tidal flooding, storm surge, and rising seas. According to Crisfield Mayor Darlene Taylor, the project would ensure long-term sustainability and provide essential support for the small, rural town to address chronic flooding challenges. "Withdrawing this funding increases our vulnerability to future flood events and puts our community at continued risk," said Mayor Taylor.

BRIC, which was established by Congress through the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, was meant to focus on resilience building in order to reduce risks to life and property, as well as reduce the costs of disaster recovery. In line with the Trump administration's apparent agenda to roll back federal funding for communities, FEMA canceled the BRIC program in April 2025, stating that it was "wasteful and ineffective," a statement that Chad Berginnis, Executive Director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, calls a "flat-out lie."

FEMA also alleged that the BRIC program was "more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters." However, it is the Trump administration's continued efforts at clawing back funds that have already been awarded to communities that seem to be in service of a "political agenda" and are directly putting Americans at an increased risk of natural disasters. I say that if this project was not meant to "help Americans affected by natural disasters"-made worse by climate change, no less -then I don't know what project would be. The Trump administration has left Crisfield, a small town with a population of about 2,500 and a small budget, like many other communities without the financial means to protect themselves against climate impacts, to fend for itself. There are legal challenges against FEMA's funds withholding and grant cancellations, but until that is resolved many communities such as Crisfield are left on their own, and in limbo.

We sat down with Mayor Taylor just after the City of Crisfield had been awarded the grant, when she had a vision for what Crisfield would be after the mitigation plan had been implemented. Born and raised in Crisfield, she talked about history and life there, the changes she's seeing, and what the grant meant for her community. Below are excerpts from our conversation. Some parts have been edited for clarity.

UCS: What are your memories of growing up in Crisfield?

Mayor Taylor: I was born and raised here, and when I grew up, it was an extremely vibrant town. That was the thing that I remember the most, is that there were a lot of seafood houses. That was a big deal for us. And there was a major plant called Mrs. Paul's, where a lot of people also worked. The seafood houses have all closed now, there's only one that's still left, and that seafood house just concentrates on oysters and soft crabs. But I know that flooding is an issue for them because it's sitting right on the water, just like the city in general is.

UCS: Was flooding always an issue for Crisfield?

MT: I remember growing up and [the city] flooded, but nowhere near the way it does today. The frequency just wasn't the same as now. There's a lot of tidal flooding that occurs, not just with storms. That's a big deal for us and it just truly impacts our way of life from schools having to close to events being cancelled.

When schools are closed in Crisfield that means schools are closed for the entire county [because the decision comes from Somerset County]. Basically, what's happened is the [County School] Superintendent now has put into place a process by which students are going to be prepared to use Zoom, as opposed to just not having a school day at all. They'll be prepared to have a virtual day.

Another example: "It Takes a Village" -a youth facility -is located downtown and today we have flooding. They said it was supposed to be about 2 1/2 feet of flooding. So we have to close off the roads and what that means is that the youth program that's supposed to start at 4pm today has to be canceled and now parents have to figure out where they're going to take their kids that would normally come to us.

A major event that we have is our Jay Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake. Jay Millard Tawes was a former governor who was from Crisfield, and so every year they've had this annual [event], for probably 50 years or more. The governor comes every year and it's a huge event where all politicians come, and people come from all over. It's usually a few thousand people that come for that day, and it's a huge event economically for Crisfield. Last year was the first time I ever remember that the event was flooded out. We still held the event, but people had to walk through water to actually [get there], including the Governor who had to come in the back way because of the water.

UCS: The economic impact must be enormous, right?

MT: It definitely is hampering us. When we have to cancel events, it's an economic issue; whenever people can't get to work, it's an economic issue. And we've seen so much more of that recently than we had in the past, so we know that things have definitely changed. Our community absolutely has deteriorated and being the mayor, one of the first things that they said to me was, you can't do anything until you fix the flooding problem, that's going to be your major challenge.

Businesses are not going to come here because of the potential for flooding. That's been one of the reasons that we focused on flooding as our top priority and how we ended up getting so many resilience partners to help us with those issues, like the opportunity to have this tool [the Looming Deadlines report from UCS] that will help us look into the future and see where we can make some changes.

The impacts are real and it's happening more often now than it ever has. It's really been a tremendous impact over the years, and a lot of people have left because of the economy, because there's been no place for work and then there have not been any real recreational kinds of opportunity, things for people to do here. There used to be movie theaters and different things for people to do, but all of that has closed up. And then trying to rebuild that under the threat of flooding is what the major challenge is for our community, and you can see that people are leaving [because of it].

We've had stores that have closed downtown and are trying to look for other places with higher ground. We're in the process right now of trying to rebuild our Main Street. In order to renovate houses or rebuild houses here, those houses have to be elevated. That means the builder cost is now increased. So now we have a lot of derelict houses.

UCS: What do you see as bright spots among the challenges?

MT: It's like a domino effect and we're feeling it. There's no question we're building back, but it is definitely a challenge because we know that the threat of flooding has increased housing insurance. It's [impacted] the people's ability to get a home. The housing stock is down because builders don't necessarily want to build in a flood zone.

So yes, we have a lot of challenges. But on the upside, the Eastern Shore Long Term Recovery Committee came in and they did a lot of building and elevating homes for people who have problems with flood insurance. Other agencies, like FEMA and the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, are actually investing in helping us to rebuild and to address some of these challenges, just as the [UCS] tool that you showed us today can help us to plan for the future.

UCS: How do you see UCS's tool helping Crisfield?

MT: It's interesting that what you showed me today was that the fire department, at some particular point, will be at risk. And one of the things that we've done is an earmark that we have put in to build a new fire department further north, not completely out of the floodplain because that's all of Crisfield, but definitely further north, somewhere where we have not seen any flooding right now. It's interesting now to be able to see when [and where] we will have some flooding. That's not something that we had really looked at in detail until I saw this today, and I appreciate what you're doing and I think it all fits together pretty well.

UCS: What is in the future for Crisfield?

MT: That's kind of what we're struggling with right now. One of the things that's on the horizon is that we are one of the five counties that have been selected for the potential of having a day passenger ferry to come from Annapolis and across the bridge, and we know that will be transformative for our community. In order to do that, we've got to build up a lot of things and that's why the FEMA [BRIC] project that we have, the $36 million to help build that barrier around our community, is so important. We have received funding to elevate our city dock, which is where the ferry would come into. We also received funding from the Department of Housing and Community Development and a bond bill from our Senator to turn that dock into a venue. In doing that, we're also going to be thinking about how it should look when we get this ferry, which would be, I'm sure, a few years down the road, but it will be transformative.

Nearby Janes Island State Park is a major Maryland asset and it's a huge asset for our community. The [Crisfield] Marina is also a huge asset for Maryland and for our community because it has a great reputation for being a state-of-the-art Marina, and a lot of folks like to come to it. However, they get to the Marina or they get to Janes Island State Park and then they don't have a reason to come into town [because the town has no tourist or other main attractions anymore].

That's why all of these things are important in the planning process, because there is investment that's coming into our community and we need to make sure that we're considering what the impacts are of the things that we're doing and the money that's being put into our community right now. We need to make sure that it's a smart investment.

Help the City of Crisfield get its BRIC grant back!

In a recent visit to Crisfield, Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, highlighted that rising waters are not a partisan issue, and that the solution and reinstatement of the BRIC program and funds would need to be a bipartisan effort. He and other Congress members have called on the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA's parent agency, to reinstate the program.

The city is working to recover the BRIC funds with the support of local, state and federal officials, various interested parties, and the general public. In a statement, the City of Crisfield said it was counting on BRIC money to fund the Southern Crisfield Flood Mitigation Project, which was designed to provide initial protection from a 3.5 feet storm surge and tie directly into Northern Crisfield Flood Mitigation Project, which would elevate and surround the city with a continuous tidal barrier to 5.0 ft above sea level. This project is critical to the city's survival amid rising sea levels due to climate change.

Crisfield is not giving up -the city has created a petition and is asking supporters to add their names to their fight. Please consider adding your name in support of the Crisfield community resilience building efforts.

You can also help protect FEMA and get BRIC funding back to all communities who need it by urging your elected officials to protect FEMA's ability to do its job and help communities reeling from the worsening impacts of extreme weather and climate-related disasters. Please join our call for action!