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FEMA says deadline to file for grants from summer storms in southeast counties is Friday

FEMA's request for cadaver pouches follows warnings at the White House of coronavirus death tolls surpassing 100,000.
Mandel Ngan
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AFP via Getty Images
FEMA's request for cadaver pouches follows warnings at the White House of coronavirus death tolls surpassing 100,000.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says it has issued more than 150 million dollars in assistance to residents in Southeast Michigan.

FEMA has been issuing grants to people impacted by a devastating storm that rolled through the region June 25th through 26th.

Originally, disaster assistance was only available to people in Wayne and Washtenaw counties, but funding later expanded to include residents in Macomb and Oakland counties.

FEMA Spokesperson La-Tanga Hopes says the agency has tried to make the aid accessible to all residents.

“We've looked at the fact that the predominant amount of people that speak here in a foreign language or need any language support would be Spanish. We've looked at the fact that even there's a large number of Arabic residents here. And we've made that available, which is unique because that was my first time seeing that.”

Hopes says the agency also opened up nine walk-in centers in communities hit hard by the storm. The deadline for residents to apply for FEMA aid is this Friday (11/12).

Laura Herberg is a reporter for 101.9 WDET, telling stories about people inhabiting the Detroit region and the issues that affect us here. She won a Regional Murrow Award for best Hard News story (Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) in 2020 and she was named the Michigan Associated Press Best Reporter for radio broadcasting in 2020, 2018 and 2017. In 2012, she was awarded a SoundCloud Fellowship for her project, “Listen to Detroit.” She also is the creator of Complete Me, a podcast with only three episodes about how she has trouble completing tasks.