The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded nearly $312 million to 13 states to invest in efforts to reduce the human, physical, and economic toll of future disasters. Iowa received the largest portion of these funds at over $84.1 million. The grants are provided through HUD's Disaster Recovery Enhancement Fund (DREF) and are intended to encourage states to undertake activities and long-term strategies that focus on reducing damages from future natural disasters.

In the past two years, HUD allocated more than $5.6 billion in disaster recovery funding through its Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to these states. The DREF was established to support the long-term recovery following dozens of natural disasters in 2008. As a result of having received CDBG funds for those disasters, these 13 states were eligible to receive additional allocations based on the significant investment they've made by targeting their CDBG funds to disaster mitigation.

For more information go to www.hud.gov