Governor Rick Snyder announced on Monday (6-26) that the state has initiated the process of acquiring federal disaster relief in Isabella and Midland counties. This follows severe flooding caused by heavy rains late last week
Snyder said FEMA officials were alerted as soon as flooding began and have been on site while state and local officials work to assess damages.
Snyder said the process for acquiring FEMA assistance is long, but is underway.
“We’ve already started discussions with FEMA we were in touch with them as soon as it started. We have a FEMA liaison on site and we’re working through that process. To be open it does take some time to work the FEMA process for the presidential declaration.”
Snyder said currently, state and local organizations are coordinating to assess the damage.
“One of the things we’ve tried to do during this process, you may have noticed the helicopter we’ve had air assets up from the very beginning to do recordings so we can have a real record of where the water actually went and look to where we can do follow up that you might not otherwise notice.”
Margaret McAvoy is the public information officer for Isabella County. She said the public damage alone is in the tens of millions of dollars. She said, private assessment for things like farms is underway.
“Agriculture is a major economic factor in this community and what’s happened is if you are a farmer and you’ve lost your crops you can’t replant this year. You can’t get that back.”
McAvoy said major flood damage throughout central Michigan, particularly to roads, could take years to repair.
A 1986 flood of similar size in Midland county cost roughly 58 million dollars. Officials say damage estimates for the current flood have not yet been completed but will likely be even higher.