Flood ruling is in

State officials are expected to announce soon that the Feb. 28 flooding in Portland did not meet the threshold for a presidential declaration of a natural disaster.
That means federal assistance for homeowners and businesses affected by the flood will be limited to low-interest loans from the Small Business Administration.
A press event scheduled for this afternoon by Jay County Emergency Management director Ralph Frazee and Portland Mayor Bruce Hosier is expected to include information on assistance for flood victims.
Officials at the Indiana Department of Homeland Security said damage reports had been forwarded to the governor’s office but that statewide numbers fell far short of what was necessary for a presidential declaration.
“We weren’t anywhere close … It just didn’t add up,” said an IDHS official, deferring formal announcement to the governor’s office.
Had the weather event qualified for a presidential declaration, direct grant assistance would have been available for homeowners from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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But federal disaster guidelines require that a minimum of 25 homes suffer major uninsured damage in a given county and a minimum of 200 homes fall into that category in the entire state.
Frazee said last week major damage had been reported to 44 Jay County homes and 30 Jay County businesses.
However, the total number of homes suffering major damage statewide in the late February storms and flooding stood at 132 as of last Wednesday. IDHS officials had hoped that the 200 home mark would be reached so that grant assistance would be available.
“You all experienced a devastating flood,” Arvin Copeland, director of the division of response and recovery of IDHS, told a standing room only crowd last week in the Jay County Courthouse auditorium.
The next step is for Gov. Mitch Daniels to request a federal declaration that the flood was a disaster that qualifies for SBA loans.[[In-content Ad]]