A month after parts of Southwest Virginia were decimated by flooding following days of torrential rain, there’s still no word about requests for an expedited major disaster declaration from President Donald Trump.
Neither U.S. Sen. Mark Warner nor Sen. Tim Kaine, both Democrats, had any information about the requests, they said separately while speaking to reporters Thursday.
“It’s awful that Trump hasn’t declared a disaster declaration for the communities hard hit,” Warner said. “These were communities that voted 70% to 75% for Donald Trump and he doesn’t even have the concern or care to designate these communities.”
The senator noted that two neighboring states, Kentucky and West Virginia, that were hit by the same winter storm received disaster declarations weeks ago.
Kentucky’s declaration was approved Feb. 24 and West Virginia’s approval came Feb. 26.
A declaration from the president would open up access to federal funding for recovery efforts.
On Friday, a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, a Republican from Salem, said the congressman hasn’t heard anything about the request.
The storms hit over the weekend of Feb. 15-16, after days of rain, with some counties receiving as much as 7 inches. Flash flooding washed out roads and bridges, caused rockslides and mudslides, and led to a death in Bland County.
Many homes and businesses were damaged and some destroyed in Dickenson County, Tazewell County and Buchanan County, where the community of Hurley was particularly hard hit again.
On Feb. 16, Gov. Glenn Youngkin asked for a federal disaster declaration for those three counties. Ten days later, he expanded the request to include eight additional counties: Bland, Giles, Lee, Pulaski, Russell, Scott, Smyth and Wise.
Warner, Kaine and Griffith also sent a letter requesting the disaster declaration and wrote another joint letter in support of the expanded declaration.
Peter Finocchio, press secretary for Youngkin, said the Virginia Department of Emergency Management and the Youngkin administration “continue to work with our federal partners to support their evaluation of the request. As we await FEMA’s [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] response based on the assessment data that has been provided, we remain in close contact with senior federal officials.”
FEMA and VDEM have been working together on assessments of the damage. Last week, VDEM released numbers from the preliminary residential damage assessments for individual assistance, which revealed that 90 homes sustained major damage and 18 homes were destroyed. Overall, 479 homes were affected by the storm, according to the numbers collected Feb. 18-28 in the 11 counties.
Individual assistance provides funding to individuals and households that have sustained losses as a direct result of a declared disaster.
Public assistance can pay for repairing or replacing eligible public or nonprofit facilities and infrastructure. The joint preliminary damage assessments for public assistance are ongoing and are expected to be completed next week, Lauren Opett, VDEM’s director of strategic communications, said Friday.
A spokesperson for FEMA said Friday that the agency remains “in active coordination” with VDEM to collect and review information to complete the public assistance preliminary damage assessments.
FEMA will also continue to coordinate with the commonwealth to determine any unmet and long-term recovery needs, she said.
Meanwhile, the United Way of Southwest Virginia will continue to accept donations for those impacted by the winter storm flooding through next week, according to Executive Director Megan Parks. She did not answer questions about how much has been raised so far.
“We will then move to distribute the collected funds directly to each of the affected counties in order to help them begin the repairs and rebuilding of the minor or major damaged, or destroyed homes in their areas,” she wrote in an email. “We will also be offering support for counties who would like to begin Long Term Recovery Groups for long-term recovery efforts.”
The United Way has already helped some residents affected by the February storms through a new program called the Citizen Recovery Program, which provides financial assistance for immediate needs like food, rent and utilities.
Parks added that the lack of a federal emergency declaration does not hinder the work that the agency is doing, but said it would be “beneficial for citizens to have the opportunity to apply for individual assistance post-disaster because those funds can go a long way to helping increase the resources required to recover and thrive.”
