On April 4, the Trump administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) abruptly canceled the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program plunging numerous local infrastructure projects into uncertainty at best.

The BRIC program funded local projects that reduce damage from flooding, tornadoes and other weather-related events. However, because $13.7 million had already been placed in the “obligated” category, there was hope the Westport tsunami tower would eventually move forward.

This week, the city of Westport was notified that the Period of Performance (POP) for the federal grant for the tsunami tower has been extended until December 2027, which will allow Westport to complete the design work and plan for the construction of the structure.

According to FEMA, “the Period of Performance is the period of time during which the grantee is expected to complete the grant activities and to incur and expend approved funds. … The total amount of time (sometimes several years) during which the federal agency authorizes a grantee to complete the approved work of the project described in the application.”

Westport Mayor Ed Welter took to Facebook and posted a video to announce the extension and express his gratitude to those involved in the project.

“I wanted to reach out and let everybody know that today we received the memo from FEMA extending the Period of Performance for the vertical evacuation structure,” Welter said. “What this means is that the project can move forward. The Period of Performance has been extended through December 2027. There is a long, long list of people to thank for this, there is a long list of state representatives, federal representatives, state emergency management, county emergency management, but I really want to take a minute and thank the community for this. It is your unified voice that allows us to carry that forward and effect these kinds of change. … There will be a lot more to come for this.”

In 2018, Westport secured a planning grant from FEMA to draft tower design renderings and prepare a grant application and was awarded a $16.7 million grant in November 2023. The project entered into its design phase in 2020.

This will be the third such structure constructed in Western Washington. The Ocosta School District built the first structure of this kind in North America in 2016, and the Shoalwater Bay Tribe completed a vertical tsunami evacuation tower near Tokeland in 2022.