{"id":1017,"date":"2012-03-12T19:53:42","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T23:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/tornado-report-ashley-tye-lcc-2012-03-12.html"},"modified":"2012-03-12T19:53:42","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T23:53:42","slug":"tornado-report-ashley-tye-lcc-2012-03-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/tornado-report-ashley-tye-lcc-2012-03-12.html","title":{"rendered":"Tornado report —Ashley Tye @ LCC 2012-03-12"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>
\nNo injuries or loss of life from the March 3rd<\/sup><\/small> tornado<\/a>, but no disaster declaration
\nand thus no government financial assistance,
\nsaid
\n
\nAshley Tye<\/a>
\nin a long report to the Lowndes County Commission this morning.
\nSuch reports are not normally repeated at the Tuesday evening
\nregular sessions, so if you weren’t there, here is the only
\nplace you will see it.<\/p>\n

\nAshley Tye remarked:<\/p>\n

\nThe good news is that there were no reported injuries or no loss of life.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was a lot of property damage.
\nHe said the National Weather Service
\ndetermined it was an F2 tornado,
\nand once it got to Walker’s Crossing it had winds of about 100 miles an hour.
\nHe said 34 homes were affected, of which 19 were destroyed,
\nmeaning uninhabitable.<\/p>\n

\nHe’s checking types of assistance that might be available.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nUnfortunately, financial assistance is unavailable;
\nit requires a federal declaration.
\nAnd while the level of damage is obviously devastating to us
\nin Lowndes County,
\nit didn’t reach the level that would meet the threshold
\nthat would cause the governor to request a federal declaration.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He said there had been a tremendous outpouring of volunteer support.
\nAnd insurance might pay off, although some people may not have enough
\ninsurance.<\/p>\n

\nHe added that the county’s code red emergency system worked well,
\nand probably had something to do with there being no loss of life.
\nI know I got at least six county code red messages that day before
\nmy message box filled up (I was in a building with no signal).<\/p>\n

\nCommissioner Richard Raines asked if FEMA had to have a declaration for
\nGEMA to respond.
\nAshley Tye answered:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nTo kind of give you an idea of how the structure works.
\nWhen our resources are overwhelmed, we can;
\nI’m kind of the liaison between GEMA; I’ll get with the Chairman and
\nMr. Pritchard….
\nGEMA is usually pretty proactive; they’ll call us and ask us what we need.
\nUnfortunately all GEMA brings is resources.
\nSo if we would have gotten a declaration; say the governor had
\ndeclared a state of emergency,
\nall that does is free up any state resources, not financial.
\nLike visible equipment.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So without a declaration of disaster so the governor could ask for
\nFEMA assistance, there’s no government financial assistance available.<\/p>\n

\nCommissioner Raines dismissed the 14% of people who were not reached
\nby Code Red, even though he voted against the
\n
\nNOAA Weather Radios<\/a>
\nthat might have reached some of them.<\/p>\n

\nAshley Tye said he and his staff were working on reviewing what
\nhad been done and what could be done better.<\/p>\n

\nHere’s
\n
\nthe video:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n