E.R. Fails To Get Federal Money After Floods
After flood waters swept through the Tennessee Valley, one of the hardest hit parts of our viewing area is East Ridge. And the announcement that FEMA won't be giving the storm-torn area federal help is causing a ripple effect.
On Monday rain fell on an East Ridge neighborhood still recovering from flood damage.
"It's unreal, be careful," J.W. Walters, with Mark Walters Construction, says while leading us into an East Ridge home.
J.W. Walters is repairing several homes in the East Ridge area, including this one which Walters and his crew have gutted.
"It was something, the water was about three inches deep on top of the floor here," Walters says.
The splintered floor boards are now piled outside along with a number of moldy ducts.
Walters shows us just one home out of several hundred that incurred damage several weeks ago, but FEMA says Hamilton County did not meet the threshold for federal disaster individual assistance. That's a disappointment for East Ridge Mayor Mike Steele, especially since his neighboring cities in Georgia did receive federal funds.
"Their issues with water created our problems and just because of a little thing called a state line, if we had been East Ridge, Georgia then we would have qualified because we were in that same event," Steele says.
To receive federal assistance FEMA mandates statewide response efforts have to cost more that $7.4 million dollars. Also, in this press release TEMA points out that Hamilton County received tremendous response from charities.
"It is a catch 22 without a doubt, you're sitting here saying okay we've got to bring help to these people as fast as, uh oh if we bring these charities in to help them then it my hinder us in qualifying to get federal money, it's almost as if we did too good of a job," Steele says.
But it's a job that Walters is still working on without federal help. And he says when it rains, it pours.
"It really would, it'd help, it sure would," Walters says.
East Ridge's Mayor tells us spent about $200-225,000 for the clean up until this point.
