July 16, 2019 4:40 a.m.
Douglas County Commissioners have provided background information on last week’s disaster declaration from President Donald Trump.
Douglas was one of 6 counties covered under the declaration which is for Oregon counties affected by severe storms, flooding, landslides, and mudslides which took place between April 6^th and April 21^st.
This declaration is separate from one made in April that addressed the snowstorms that happened in February.
A release from the Board said the process to apply for reimbursement of disaster expenses from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is “incredibly daunting”. County emergency managers must conduct an accurate and timely Initial Damage Assessment, acquire and tabulate all submitted data and continue to follow up throughout the process in order to be eligible for possible disaster reimbursement from FEMA, according to the release.
To be considered, there are predetermined thresholds set by FEMA in order to move to the next level. Douglas County currently has to meet a per incident expense threshold of $406,000 and receive a disaster declaration from County Commissioners in order to submit to the state level for an emergency declaration. The State of Oregon must meet a threshold of $5.7 million in order to submit to the federal level for an emergency declaration.
Then the President must approve a Federal Disaster Declaration for that specific incident before the application is turned over to FEMA for processing. Once the order is signed, FEMA will assign a Federal Coordinating Officer to oversee the federal recovery operations in the affected areas. At that point, FEMA will conduct a complete assessment, coordinate trainings, and schedule onsite meetings directly with applicants to go through their application line-by-line and determine the eligibility for reimbursement of expenses. The process timeline is entirely up to FEMA and can take 8 months to a year or longer to be finalized.
The release said that Douglas County listed an initial placeholder of $781,000 in estimated expenses on its disaster application for the “April Storm Incident”. According to the National Weather Service, Douglas County received more than 3 inches of rain in a 72-hour period. That resulted in flooding, road closures and large amounts of debris being washed into rivers and lakes.
Commissioner Tim Freeman said its important to remember that the County will respond during an emergency, regardless of whether it will be a FEMA reimbursable event. He said its important to note that this is not additional funding coming into Douglas County. He said it’s an opportunity to be able to recoup a portion of the expenses incurred from the recent storms. Freeman said the commissioners are “grateful to the President for the approval of both declarations”.