SNAP recipients: Lose groceries due to severe weather? Here's how you might qualify for replacement benefits
(WJET/WFXP) – Are you a SNAP benefit recipient who recently lost groceries due to issues caused by severe weather? Then you might be entitled to replacement benefits.
According to the PA Department of Human Services (DHS), SNAP benefit recipients are eligible to receive replacement benefits if they lost food due to power outages, flooding, fires or other disasters.
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The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's website states that SNAP recipients must complete and submit an Affidavit for Replacement of Food Destroyed in a Household Disaster within 10 days of the reported food loss.
SNAP recipients may also request replacement funds in person at their local DHS County Assistance Office, over the phone or through the COMPASS app.
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'The last thing you need to worry about when recovering from a storm is being unable to eat, so I want all impacted, eligible Pennsylvanians to know that help is available right now. If you are a SNAP recipient and this storm caused a power outage that spoiled your food, you can receive replacement SNAP benefits. DHS is here when you need us, so please reach out to your local County Assistance Office and request replacement SNAP benefits as soon as possible,' said DHS Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh.
For more information, click here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET/WFXP/YourErie.com.
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FEMA Is Not Prepared
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Who manages the disaster if the disaster managers are the disaster? That's a question that the people of the United States may have to answer soon. As hurricane season begins in the U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in disarray. Reuters reported yesterday that acting FEMA head David Richardson suggested during a meeting with employees that he was unaware of the very existence of a hurricane season. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security dismissed the report: 'Despite meanspirited attempts to falsely frame a joke as policy, there is no uncertainty about what FEMA will be doing this Hurricane Season.' 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In the post-FEMA future that Trump has floated, states would be responsible for all disaster recovery. Some conservatives have long argued that states need to shoulder more responsibility for smaller disasters, but most states (and territories such as Puerto Rico) simply don't have the resources to respond to large-scale disasters like Helene. This is, after all, one reason the 13 colonies united in the first place: for mutual aid and protection. The federal government has much greater resources and, unlike most states, is not required to balance its budget annually. That makes it a crucial financial backstop. As Brock Long, who led FEMA during Trump's first term, told me last year, 'All disasters are locally executed, state managed, and federally supported.' FEMA has not, generally, been a partisan agency. Administrators may have different political views, but they try to provide help without consideration for politics. I've spoken with several administrators over the years, and they are consistently professional, don't take wildly differing approaches to their work, and are dedicated to emergency response. When an employee at FEMA was caught telling workers not to help people with Trump signs in their yards, it was rightly a scandal. Yet in his first term, Trump himself reportedly withheld or delayed disaster funds in multiple cases based on partisanship. His reversal on assistance for Arkansas residents raises the specter of a future in which only states whose governors are close to Trump can hope to obtain relief. And yet if FEMA isn't prepared for hurricane season, doesn't have sufficient staff, and is laboring under a president who would like to see it gone, the problem may not be that only the president's allies can get help from the federal government—but rather that no one can. 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One of his studies had led him to an unusual conclusion: Among diabetics, eating half a cup of ice cream a day was associated with a lower risk of heart problems. Needless to say, the idea that a dessert loaded with saturated fat and sugar might actually be good for you raised some eyebrows at the nation's most influential department of nutrition. Culture Break Watch. Our writers and editors recommend five movies they could watch over and over again. P.S. Professional emergency managers are some of the most impressive people I've interviewed. To succeed, they have to be extremely practical, very creative, and totally unflappable. In 2015, while reporting an article on ' maximums of maximums '—the biggest hypothetical catastrophes the nation could face—I asked some sources what their nightmare was. 'What keeps me up is another form of a pandemic, respiratory transmitted, highly lethal virus,' Anthony Fauci told me. (Good prediction, doc.) 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