The Christian County Commission signed and submitted a letter Monday in hopes of receiving help to repair the damage from this summer’s flooding. The letter was sent to the National Resources Conservation Service in Columbia, MO.
Eastern District Commissioner Sue Ann Childers says she’s anxious to move forward with the repairs.
“We had a meeting a week ago with the Department of Agriculture and part of their job is to help us with permanent repairs,” she said. “Now the letter that we signed yesterday was a letter to them requesting their assistance.”
Phil Amtower is the emergency management director for Christian County. He said the letter was a formality after the commission was able to meet with a NRCS civil engineer last week.
The NRCS had told the commission that it will offer assistance after the county is awarded the FEMA disaster declaration, which Childers says officials are working to obtain for the entire county.
“So as soon as that arrives then we will be able to finish with FEMA and possibly get some aid in repairing all of these roads and the bridges and things that have been damaged,” Childers said.
Childers noted that this summer’s rains have flooded, washed out, or damaged in some way many of the county’s roads.
Amtower said that in order for the county to be eligible for the declaration that they have to reach at least $270,000 in damage.
“Not counting some of the damage we received this past weekend, we estimated that we have a little over $500,000 in damage throughout the county,” said Amtower.
Amtower is referring to previous flood damage largely due to remnants of Tropical Depression Bill June 17-18. There was also significant flooding in the city of Ozark last Friday.
If awarded, FEMA would pay for 75 percent of the repairs to damaged property. The letter sent by commissioners Monday stated that it was prepared locally to "pay for at least 25 percent of the cost of construction work."
The commission says it’s aware that people are in desperate need to get their roads back and are doing everything there is to help restore the roads and are discussing how to prevent these heavy floods in the future.
“What we’re trying to do is talk to experts, talk to our engineers and see where the water was, where it went and that’s why the Department of Agriculture will be so helpful in helping us figure out a permanent solution so perhaps we can control the water a little bit,” Childers said.
Amtower said the money from the department could potentially be used for projects to make roads a little less susceptible to flood damage.