By John Estridge
State and Federal financial assistance for recent, severe Franklin County storm damage may not be a slam dunk.
Franklin County Emergency Management Agency Director Amy Lindsey told the Franklin County Commissioners about efforts to bring state and federal funding to the county level to help with the mitigation of the damage caused from multiple June storms to Franklin County infrastructure.
She said the storms of June 3, June 12 and June 18-19 are all separate incidents, according to state and federal protocol. According to Lindsey, she and a state representative from the state EMA, toured the county for seven hours looking at the various damage done by the three separate storms. Lindsey also utilized photos taken by the county highway department as well as photos she took at the time of the damage. This extensive damage included a bridge on Snail Creek Road during the June 12 storm incident. It is now closed, and it will cost between an estimated $350,000 and $400,000 to put a new bridge in its place.
For all the three storm incidents, the state representative estimated the county infrastructure damage at $1 million, Lindsey said.
Federal damage assistance does not kick in until about the $15-18 million mark is met statewide, she said although she said she is unsure of the minimum amount needed to reach the threshold. At that point, there is a federal disaster declaration.
While this may not trigger a large amount of help from the state or federal governments, there is a chance the counties in the region and the entire state could pool their damage costs together and get money from the state and federal government in that manner. She said surrounding counties also had extensive storm damage during the three incidents as did northwest Indiana counties.
She said efforts at the state level are to get some assistance out of the state disaster relief fund. However, the amount of money in that fund is limited and the state will release only 40 percent of the fund’s total for assistance. She used the example of the fund having $1 million. The state would then release $400,000 for the various counties around the state negatively affected by the storms to divide up that amount.
“If we do get the state fund, it won’t be a lot,” Lindsey said.
Thus, she is hoping that a federal declaration is made. She said there is apparently extensive damage in the state’s northwest counties.
Also, the intent of the state money is to put the infrastructure back to pre-disaster status and not to fix it completely, she said.
As an example she said the amount of money the state would release to fix pavement washed away during the storm, would just be enough to put it back to the pre-disaster status and not to fix it good as new.
She said much of the storm damage to the county infrastructure is from blown out culverts, which are about $6,500 for a 40-foot culvert.
Engineering work for fixing the Snail Creek Bridge, Bridge 42, starts at $50,000. This amount was approved by the commissioners at the Tuesday meeting to pay USI for the plan to replace the damaged structure. County highway engineer Larry Smith said the bridge is under the emergency bridge replacement status because the road is closed due to the damage.
