Whatcom, Snohomish and King County residents affected by November’s bomb cyclone can now qualify to receive financial aid. Former Gov. Jay Inslee unlocked $1 million in Washington State Disaster Individual Assistance (IA) Program funds with an emergency proclamation on Jan. 7.
IA funds can be used for home repairs, temporary housing and other unmet needs. To check if you qualify, complete this survey or call 360-676-6681. Funds must be distributed to qualifying residents by June 30, 2025.
Costs to recover from the cyclone currently exceed $41 million, leaving a $40 million deficit between what Washington state needs and what it’s getting, Inslee said in the Bomb Cyclone Storm Damage Proclamation.
“State and Federal recovery efforts rarely bring disaster survivors 100% back to where they were prior to the disaster,” Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office Department of Emergency Management (WCSO DEM) wrote in an email.
WCSO DEM said that Inslee’s $41 million estimate is likely a sum of insured and uninsured losses, plus damage to public infrastructure and private property. IA funds will only serve under or uninsured households impacted by the storm.
“The funds provided by Washington State for the state IA program seek to do the most good for the most people that are severely impacted by the incident,” WCSO DEM wrote.
The cyclone left massive amounts of damage. While helpful, IA funds can’t cover all of the necessary repairs.
“Most of the damage, I would say almost 99% of it, was limited to Sudden Valley,” Fire Chief with South Whatcom County Fire Authority (SWFA) Mitch Nolze said.
Sudden Valley received the brunt of the bomb cyclone in Whatcom County because it’s so dense with trees and houses, Public Information Officer Amy Cloud at WCSO DEM told The Bellingham Herald in November.
Nolze said the fire authority responded to a high volume of calls about downed trees on houses, buildings and propane tanks.
“It was about a week’s worth of calls in a single six-hour period,” Nolze said.
The small downtown area of Sudden Valley on Jan. 29, 2025, in Bellingham, Wash. The area experienced the most extreme consequences of November’s bomb cyclone, and residents who sustained property damage from the storm are still recovering months later. // Photo by Hope Rasa
The Sudden Valley Community Association (SVCA) surveyed their community about cyclone damage. Of 526 respondents, 154 reported property damage of some kind. 96 of those cases involved damage to a house.
“My house was hit. I didn’t sustain horrible damage, but I did have a tree come through my roof in my bathroom,” said Diane Bruneau, a Sudden Valley resident and SVCA staff member.
IA doesn’t satisfy the needs of those hit hard by the cyclone. Sudden Valley resident Trinity Andersen’s home was bludgeoned by a tree during the cyclone. On Dec. 16, Andersen’s daughter, Natalie, set up a GoFundMe with a goal of $10,000 to help her mother move houses.
“This was the scariest night of our lives and my mom was in the living room where the house collapsed,” Natalie Andersen wrote on GoFundMe. “Our unit has been declared a total loss by insurance and we have lost everything.”
The state IA program offers Extended Sheltering Assistance (ESA) for those whose homes were destroyed. ESA reimburses up to three weeks of hotel stays for displaced survivors.
Three weeks often isn’t enough. On Dec. 18, Natalie Andersen updated her GoFundMe announcing her family had been accepted for a rental of a new home. This came one day short of a month after their home was destroyed.
During that time, the Andersens relied on a hotel stay funded by insurance, which would have run out on Dec. 25. Had the Andersens’ insurance not covered that, ESA would have provided shelter for three out of the four weeks they spent without a residence.
The limited disaster relief provided by the IA program has been a long time coming. Those impacted by the cyclone’s devastation in November are still picking up the pieces.
When asked if they wanted help tending to the property damage, 63 of the 154 respondents to the SVCA’s survey said yes. Bruneau said the SVCA currently has four people who have asked for permission to replace “like for like,” which means replacing a damaged item with something of the same quality.
“I suspect we’re going to hear from more as time goes on,” said Bruneau.
Hope Rasa (she/her) is a city news reporter for The Front this quarter. She is a second-year Western student majoring in news/editorial journalism. She enjoys running, hiking, reading and spending time with her cat. You can reach her at hoperasa.thefront@gmail.com.
