FILE A provided photo from August 2026 showing Columbia Memorial Hospital under construction. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has released more than $14 million in funding for major renovations to Astoria’s largest hospital. Hospital construction had already begun when the Trump administration suspended a FEMA grant program last year.
Courtesy of Stratoscape Corp/Columbia Memorial Hospital
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has released more than $14 million in funding for major renovations to Astoria’s largest hospital, Oregon lawmakers announced in a press release Monday.
A FEMA grant program established in 2020 dedicated $20 million in federal and state funds toward an earthquake and tsunami readiness project at Columbia Memorial Hospital, expected to cost an estimated $300 million total.
But the Trump administration suspended the program last year.
Clatsop County Commissioner Mark Kujala said the the project will receive the other $6 million — a 30% match from the state of Oregon — next year.
But hospital spokesperson Sarah Bello said the FEMA funds bring the construction project within budget.
“This is huge for CMH. This is huge for Clatsop County and for the community that we serve,” Bello said. “We have that money now, and we can make sure that we’re ready for the future if there is a tsunami or an earthquake in the area.”
The funding will pay for the construction of a stronger foundation and a tsunami evacuation structure to get as many as 1,900 people to higher ground in case of an emergency.
The grant program, Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, gives states and local governments funding for hazard mitigation projects.
In April 2025, FEMA announced it was ending BRIC as part of the federal government’s efforts to cut wasteful spending. Twenty states, including Oregon and Washington, sued, and later that year a judge ordered the Trump administration to resume the program.
Crews had already broken ground on the Columbia Memorial Hospital project when the BRIC funds were frozen last year. According to Kujala, the hospital and Clatsop County moved forward with the project “because there was a commitment to the community.”
He added that the hospital was prepared to backfill the missing $14.5 million.
Bello said, to her knowledge, the ongoing work was “being paid for out of the construction budget with the hope that the BRIC grant would be restored eventually.”
Despite rising costs due to inflation, the total budget for the hospital expansion has remained at $300 million.
In a press release Monday, state and local leaders celebrated the release of funding but decried the federal government’s efforts to slash investment in disaster mitigation.
“This award is a critical investment in the North Coast’s ability to be resilient in the face of disasters,” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in the release.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said, “disaster relief should have never been held up over partisan politics … Oregonians’ safety is too important to play games with.”
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
FEMA announced in a press release Tuesday it approved about $43 million for disaster relief and mitigation projects across Oregon, Washington and Alaska. That includes the $14 million for Columbia Memorial Hospital’s earthquake and tsunami readiness project.
“These awards are the latest examples of billions of dollars in disaster recovery provided by FEMA to support state and local communities as they work to rebuild from recent natural disasters,” the agency said in the release.
