BOSTON — When flooding devastated the Pioneer Valley in summer 2023, it took an extraordinary partnership between the state, nonprofits and private individuals to quickly bring millions of dollars in aid to those affected.

In the wake of those floods, state Rep. Natalie Blais, D-Deerfield, and state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, filed legislation seeking to create a disaster relief fund that would ensure quick disbursements to municipalities suffering from natural or man-made disasters, such as the 2022 arson of Orange’s former cereal factory.

That bill, though, was launched to the front of the line when Gov. Maura Healey, in her fiscal year 2025 budget, included a $14 million Disaster Relief and Resiliency Fund proposal, which provides municipalities with emergency funding to recover from disasters that may not qualify for federal aid. The fund has been included again in her FY26 budget proposal, this time at an even larger $15 million.

“[Healey] helped to catapult this bill forward in record time,” Blais said. “Having this fund available, the fact that it is there and that we don’t have to wait for the Legislature … is so important as our communities are grappling with increasingly strong storm events.”

Blais and Comerford both highlighted the challenges municipalities face in trying to get money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has a relief program driven by a funding formula that often excludes rural communities because those towns don’t reach a qualifying damage threshold.

“I think these are all really important advances when we think of public safety and security and when we think of equity,” Comerford said, adding that the next steps involve “building capacity at the state level and municipal level for interfacing with MEMA and FEMA.”

Many communities in the state and Pioneer Valley, particularly Deerfield and Conway, were floundering as they faced the reality of millions of dollars in damages. The state came through in January 2024 with flood relief money.

While they filed the bill, the legislators said credit goes to the folks on the ground — farmers who lost crops or municipal officials trying to carve out money for road repairs — and their stories for striking a chord in Boston when state politicians were touring damaged sites that summer.

“We were impacted here in western Massachusetts and I want to thank the communities, the businesses and the farmers who came out to tell their stories again and again and again,” Blais said. “These stories were impactful, they were heard all the way on Beacon Hill and that is what truly helped us to get this bill across the finish line in record time.”

“The reason we did this was because we saw our municipal officials fighting so hard,” Comerford added. “They tuned us in to the stakes and, again, it was the experience we went through with them.”

For their work in bringing the bill forward before it was co-opted by the governor as part of the annual budget, as well as for filing a bill to establish a Municipal and Public Safety Building Authority, Blais and Comerford were honored by the Massachusetts Municipal Association in late January with its 2025 Municipal Advocate Award.

“It’s a testament for government to be able to move like lightning when we make it move. It’s a story we don’t often tell because we expect government to move like molasses and this time it didn’t,” Comerford said. “For me, it’s a hopeful recognition that that kind of responsiveness can happen.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.