Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Commissioner Works to Add Up Damage Estimates

Hopper’s Corner, in the Blackgum area, 

Road damage on  Buzzard Loop.

Sequoyah County commissioners will have no trouble reaching the money threshold to obtain repair funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Steve Carter, Sequoyah County District 2 commissioner, said Tuesday.

Steve Rutherford, Sequoyah County Emergency Management director, said the threshold is $151,000.

Carter and staff have been out in his district, in the western portion of the county, taking photos of washed out roads on Monday and Tuesday. As a preliminary estimate, because he has not surveyed all the damage yet, Carter said he has between 150 to 200 miles of washed out roads. And that doesn’t include damage to drainage ditches. He said in one area, a Sequoyah County Water Association line was also broken, and washed out a bar ditch to two feet below its normal depth. That water line was repaired on Sunday, Carter said.

The damage is due to heavy rains over the weekend, and more rain storms are predicted for Tuesday night and Wednesday.

“I can guarantee we will meet the FEMA threshold,” Carter said. “A person can’t believe the damage. It’s something else. We’re trying to get the roads back open as soon as we can.”

Carter said the west side of Sequoyah County received 5.5 inches of rain over the weekend.


Sally Maxwell, Senior News Director

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