DeSantis announces individual federal aid for Bay County residents impacted by Sally

News Herald (Panama City, FL)

Oct. 2--PANAMA CITY -- Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Friday individual federal aid for residents in Bay and four other counties impacted by Hurricane Sally.

According to a Friday press release from the governor's office, the other counties approved for individual aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency include Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton.

Families impacted by the hurricane now have access to critical FEMA programs, including housing assistance, crisis counseling, disaster unemployment assistance, Small Business Administration assistance, disaster legal services and case management.

Heavy rain from the hurricane last month caused significant flooding in parts of Bay County that impacted multiple homeowners. Estimates on total damage costs for public and private property were unavailable from the county on Friday.

"I want to thank President Trump for his steadfast commitment to Florida following Hurricane Sally," DeSantis said in the press release. "The people of Northwest Florida are resilient and these individual assistance programs will go a long way to help their rebuilding process.

Jared Moskowitz, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said in the press release that he saw Sally's devastating impact firsthand when touring Pensacola soon after the storm hit.

"Since that day, we have deployed dozens of staff from the division to document every single structure that was damaged, and as a result of that hard work, we are able to bring more resources to the Panhandle today," Moskowitz said. "Thank you, FEMA, for approving individual assistance and getting impacted Floridians the help they need."

On Sept. 18, DeSantis requested all programs under Individual Assistance and all categories of Public Assistance for 13 counties impacted by Hurricane Sally. On Sept. 24, DeSantis announced that FEMA had issued a major disaster declaration for Hurricane Sally, which included all categories of Public Assistance for Escambia County and public assistance Category B (emergency protective measures) for Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson, Liberty, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Walton and Washington counties. On September 30, the declaration was amended to include all categories of Public Assistance for Santa Rosa County.

Following the impact of Hurricane Sally, FDEM deployed hurricane recovery and mitigation experts into impacted counties to conduct joint preliminary damage assessments, the press release states. By conducting these damage assessments quickly and comprehensively, the Division was able to submit documentation to FEMA justifying the need for individual assistance in five impacted counties. The Division continues to work closely with every county impacted by the storm to conduct damage assessments and begin the process of distributing recovery funding.

DeSantis announced on Thursday the first Emergency Bridge Loan for a small business impacted by Hurricane Sally. More information on the Emergency Bridge Loan can be found here.

For more information on Hurricane Sally and available resources, visit https://www.floridadisaster.org/info.

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