The Commission of Budget and Accounting is hereby expressly authorized and empowered to utilize any funds appropriated for such purposes which said sum shall not exceed five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000.00) to make grants to boards of supervisors, boards of trustees of public schools and junior colleges, and the mayor and board of aldermen or other governing body of incorporated municipalities for the purpose of assisting such county and municipal government authorities in obtaining federal funds to be used in making repairs, renovations, restoration, construction, reconstruction and related improvements, and restoring or purchasing machinery, equipment and supplies to public office buildings, schools, courthouses, hospitals, water supplies, sewer and utility systems, streets, roads, and airports and other governmental facilities, all of such being publicly owned and governed by said governing authorities having statutory power thereover, which real, personal or mixed properties were either damaged, destroyed or lost as a direct result of a series of tornadoes which wrought unprecedented devastation to the State of Mississippi on Sunday, February 21, 1971.