SAN MARCOS, Texas (Nexstar) — Three years after flooding damaged Carmen Martinez’s home twice in six months, she received the keys to a brand new house.

Her home was reconstructed with funding from a Community Development Block Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Those grants pay for housing, infrastructure and social services projects for people with low and moderate income. HUD granted the City of San Marcos just short of $34 million, specifically designated for victims of natural disasters and other community infrastructure projects to prevent future flooding.

“Every time it rains, you panic,” Martinez said. Her home flooded in 1998, during the Memorial Day floods of 2015 and again later that year.

“I will be able to sleep at night without having to worry about flooding again,” she said. City leaders visited her home Monday for a ribbon cutting and to present her with the keys to her new place.

“This program started when the 2015 floods hit San Marcos not once but twice. A lot of people were able to rebuild after the first one but not the second one,” San Marcos housing and community development manager Stacy Brown said. “(Carmen) still needed a lot of things done when we finally got HUD funding in 2017. She came to one of our application workshops and we met her and went through the eligibility process, and that took about eight months.”

“A portion of our money went to housing, but the bigger portion is going to infrastructure projects, which are drainage, detention ponds, having some place for the river to flow so that it does not go into the community,” Brown explained.

Martinez’s home is elevated to avoid future flooding.

“I’m sitting up high,” Martinez said with a proud smile. “I don’t have to worry about any more flooding.”

A San Marcos flood ordinance passed last year requires new homes to be built at least two feet above expected flood levels.

“We do not want people to get flooded when they rebuild their homes,” Brown said. “It’s open here because if there is a flood, we don’t want it to back up. We just want it to come through.”

Brown estimated between 10 and 20 of the 75 applications submitted so far will be approved.

“Usually states get this money, not little towns like San Marcos, and so we were very privileged to get this money, to help with our floods,” Brown said. “Usually it will go to the state and then the state will disperse funds to different towns and that’s what’s going to happen with Harvey. The money will go to the state and the state will oversee it. But we are out here on our own and with the help of HUD in Washington.”

Martinez’s home cost $172,000 to build. City officials said four other homes currently being built in Hays County will be completed by the end of the year, with three more set to break ground in early 2019.