Disaster aid for area is certain, feds tell officials

The Federal Emergency Management Agency representative in Havre today said, after hearing initial estimates on flood damage in the county, that Hill County definitely would qualify for federal aid if a presidential disaster is declared.

"No doubt," Loran Gardner of FEMA said in an interview after the meeting.

Gardner said FEMA officials have been around the state for the last week, doing predisaster damage estimates to use in advising President Barack Obama whether to declare a disaster in the state.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer last week requested a disaster declaration for the flooding around the state.

FEMA's recommendation on declaring a disaster is expected to be acted on early next week.

Gardner said the initial statewide estimate is expected to be completed Wednesday. He said he would be working all day today entering the data local officials gave him to be submitted for final compilation in Helena.

Representatives of the county, the city, Hill County Electric Cooperative and Triangle Communications telephone cooperative all attended the meeting to write up estimates, including power poles being down, roads and bridges being washed out, problems at the Havre Water Treatment Plant, including needing to use a much higher chemical content and a sinkhole developing near the weir that diverts water from the Milk River to the plant, and severe damage at Beaver Creek Park.

Gardner said he had a team out working at Rocky Boy, and teams were at Blaine County and Fort Belknap Indian Reservation over the weekend.

All of those areas easily will meet the $54,521 threshold necessary to qualify the counties or reservations for federal aid.

In a disaster declaration, federal money is available to help pay for work done to public property in a natural disaster.

As cooperatives, work done by Hill County Electric and Triangle Communications also can qualify.

Hill County and Rocky Boy still were in the process of working on projects approved after last year's flooding. Much of the money approved for work had not yet been received by the county or the reservation to do the work.

Gardner said the next step if a disaster is declared is for the state to hold an applicant briefing meeting, in which all groups with claims would start the process by filing an application to be a sub-grantee of the state government, which would be the lead agency in administering the disaster aid.

"That's the trigger that starts activity for every one (of the entities)," he said.