Photo courtesy of Deputy Judge-Executive Garland Gilliam.
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
After the sever weather in February, Emergency Management Director Garland Gilliam said both the federal and the state emergency management agencies had personnel in Barren County to verify the county hit the threshold of damages required to receive federal and state funds.
“We were doing what’s called a Joint Preliminary Damage Assessment,” Gilliam said. “We have to submit all these damages up to the state when they declared a disaster…, the county has a threshold it has to meet to qualify for [Federal Emergency Management Agency] assistance. What the [Joint Preliminary Damage Assessment] is, is FEMA and the state does another damage assessment basically to make sure ours matches.”
“We submit what damages we had and they come down to verify,” he added.
Gilliam said the county’s threshold was roughly $209,000 and, during an interview last week, he said he’d already submitted over $319,000 in damages to the state and was still “finding damages everyday.”
He said the five federal and state emergency management individuals saw damaged roads, including Ritters Mill, Oil Well, Payne Loop, Happy Hollow and Glover roads.
“They take all their notes and go back to the state and say ‘yes they really do have this much damage, move on to the next step,'” Gilliam said.
In February, Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd said she’d declare a state of emergency with the primary purpose of receiving assistance with road repairs and maintenance.
“We have to fix these roads, we have no choice, and we have to pay for it [through this process] we’re basically allowing FEMA to reimburse us in the future,” Gilliam said.
Barren’s is one of 40 scheduled visits over “the next several weeks.”
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