The Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied Illinois federal public assistance for communities hit by last November's tornadoes. Local and state communities say FEMA dollars would help pay for debris removal and other publicly funded clean-up efforts. The state plans to appeal the decision.
There are two kinds of assistance that FEMA administers after a disaster. One is individual, where a homeowner can get help with repairs and rebuilding, among other things. That’s been approved. The other kind of assistance is public, which involves local governments that have damaged property or infrastructure and are saddled with the cost of paying first responders overtime. It’s that assistance that was denied. Following an assessment, FEMA calculated that it could cover roughly $6 million dollars of that damage in the nine-county area.
Jonathon Monken is the director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. He says an appeal gives the state and local communities another chance to calculate damage costs.
“It’s not just about well this number is there, this number is not. There’s a lot more to it than that. The second and third order impacts to communities need to be considered when we’re talking about whether a community needs federal assistance,” Monken said.
Dawn Cook directs the Tazewell County Emergency Management Agency. She agrees an appeal will help local authorities get a better handle on damage estimates:
“We need to take really a harder second-look at to make sure that the costs that we had actually supplied were correct. So I think that we’ll provide some numbers that are a little more accurate,” Cook said.
FEMA says the state was more than $11 million short of a threshold to qualify for public assistance. Monken says new damage assessments can better reflect costs incurred by cities like Washington. The Central Illinois town saw more than 1,000 homes damaged in the tornado and lost a significant amount of its property tax base. The state has 30 days to submit an appeal.