New effort in Mower County to assist in recovering from flood damage
(ABC 6 News) — Officials in Mower County are collecting information from residents about damage to personal property from recent flooding in an attempt to help the state secure federal aid.
Residents in the area are doubtful about the help however, particularly in Austin where flooding occurred in basements nowhere near lakes or rivers.
Instead, sewage backed up in the worst flooding some residents say they’ve seen in over 30 years.
“As of June 22nd, we’ve been getting quite a bit of calls for flooded basements, sewage backups and things like that,” said Kevin Hernandez, area manager for ServiceMaster by Rice, a water damage restoration company.
“The southeast quadrant took a pretty big hit. A lot of affected basements that need to be torn out due to sewage back flows.”
Some residents seem more concerned about where the help is going to come from. Mower County officials say steps are being taken.
“So what this does is it gets numbers that the state can use in order to declare certain types of disasters,” said Amy Bramwell, Mower County’s emergency manager. “So what we’re trying to do is get disaster money potentially for uninsured or low insured people that have had flood damage.”
She also said that federal assistance may still take some time.
“This is a statewide disaster, it doesn’t just affect Mower County. So, getting the ball rolling it’s gonna be a big project for the state to gather up all this information.”
The form to submit information and photos of before and after flooding damage and cleanup efforts can be submitted here.