FEMA sends New Albany nearly $1M for winter storm debris pickup
By Alex Rozier | Originally published by Mississippi Today
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded more than $948,000 to the city of New Albany to assist with picking up debris caused by Winter Storm Fern in January.
The city in Union County was one of the areas hit hardest by the storm.
The funding, which was announced Friday, is part of more than $60 million in post-disaster funding for Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation Grant Program projects in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
In early April, Union County emergency director Curt Clayton told Mississippi Today he estimated the county faced between $15 million and $20 million in debris pick-up costs. Between local roads and state highways, the county had hauled over 330,000 cubic yards of debris with roughly 200,000 more remaining, Clayton said.
Union County was one of the 34 counties, as well as the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, affected by the storm to be approved for all funding categories of FEMA’s Public Assistance program, which helps pay for repairs to public buildings and infrastructure.
The other 33 counties are: Adams, Alcorn, Attala, Benton, Bolivar, Calhoun, Carroll, Claiborne, Grenada, Holmes, Humphreys, Issaquena, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lee, Leflore, Marshall, Montgomery, Panola, Pontotoc, Prentiss, Quitman, Sharkey, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tippah, Tishomingo, Warren, Washington, Webster, Yalobusha and Yazoo.
Officials from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency estimated the total damages from Winter Storm Fern, which killed at least 30 people in the state, were well over $400 million.
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
