No injuries or loss of life from the March 3
rd tornado, but no disaster declaration
and thus no government financial assistance,
said
Ashley Tye
in a long report to the Lowndes County Commission this morning.
Such reports are not normally repeated at the Tuesday evening
regular sessions, so if you weren’t there, here is the only
place you will see it.
Ashley Tye remarked:
The good news is that there were no reported injuries or no loss of life.
There was a lot of property damage.
He said the National Weather Service
determined it was an F2 tornado,
and once it got to Walker’s Crossing it had winds of about 100 miles an hour.
He said 34 homes were affected, of which 19 were destroyed,
meaning uninhabitable.
He’s checking types of assistance that might be available.
Unfortunately, financial assistance is unavailable;
it requires a federal declaration.
And while the level of damage is obviously devastating to us
in Lowndes County,
it didn’t reach the level that would meet the threshold
that would cause the governor to request a federal declaration.
He said there had been a tremendous outpouring of volunteer support.
And insurance might pay off, although some people may not have enough
insurance.
He added that the county’s code red emergency system worked well,
and probably had something to do with there being no loss of life.
I know I got at least six county code red messages that day before
my message box filled up (I was in a building with no signal).
Commissioner Richard Raines asked if FEMA had to have a declaration for
GEMA to respond.
Ashley Tye answered:
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Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), made a presentation to the Lowndes County Commission at their Work Session 26 March 2012. VLCIA Board member G. Norman Bennett was also present. Congratulations to VLCIA on proactively getting the word out about what they are doing!
