Federal aid may be a long shot after South Bend flooding

Aug. 19--SOUTH BEND -- This week's once-in-a-millennium rainfall and the ensuing flood destroyed or heavily damaged dozens of homes in the area, but it may not be easy for local officials to make a case for disaster aid from the federal government.

Local and state officials have urged residents to immediately report any property damage so that the Indiana Department of Homeland Security can determine whether residents and local governments may qualify for money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Cleanup and damage assessments were still ongoing Thursday, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg urged patience in the wake of the unprecedented rainstorm that dropped an amount of water seen just once every thousand years, according to meteorologists.

"South Bend is fortunate in the sense that we got through a thousand-year rainfall event without any reports of casualties," Buttigieg said at a Thursday afternoon news conference. "The days coming ahead are where frustration is really going to set in."

As of Wednesday afternoon, the total extent of the flood damage remained unclear, though South Bend officials said American Red Cross volunteers working with the city had counted 22 destroyed structures, 15 with major damage and 10 with minor damage. But the tally of losses would likely need to rise before FEMA were to step in with grant money for individual residents.

"With a FEMA request it has to be more than one county that has considerable losses, and I don't know if we're going to get to that threshold," said John Erickson a spokesman for the state Department of Homeland Security. "Hundreds of homes would need to be in that destroyed or major damage category."

Residents are asked to submit damage reports either to the St. Joseph County Emergency Management Agency or to the state Department of Homeland Security directly. As the state collects damage reports, it has deployed staff to inspect properties, verify the damage and assign a level of severity.

FEMA uses a four-point scale to rate damage, categorizing properties as "affected," "minor damage," "major damage" or "destroyed."

In general, a major damage rating requires a water line above 18 inches in an essential living space, a water line above electrical outlets or a water line on the first floor of a home with a basement. A house is considered to be destroyed only after the complete failure of two or more major structural components, including the walls, foundation and roof.

Joseph Wainscott Jr., a Red Cross disaster relations director for Indiana, said the agency had about 40 staff and volunteers moving through city neighborhoods to check on residents and assess damage. Of the 450 homes inspected through Wednesday, 37 were destroyed or had major damage, 10 had minor damage and the rest were affected by water in basements or crawl spaces.

The Red Cross workers had inspected a total of about 700 homes through Thursday, but updated damage assessments were not yet available.

Besides grants to help residents recover from the damage, the state could pursue grants for city and county governments to help pay for damage to streets, cleanup expenses and other public costs. Erickson said the eligible costs to local governments must exceed $11.2 million to qualify for FEMA aid.

Eric Horvath, South Bend's director of public works, said Wednesday it was too early to estimate the damage to city streets and infrastructure. Although all but portions of three streets -- Fox Street, Chippewa Avenue and Walton Avenue -- had been deemed safe enough to reopen, city crews would need to wait for the water to fully recede before checking underneath streets for hidden damage, he said.

On at least one county road -- Chippewa Avenue just west of South Bend -- floodwater caused a large chunk of the road to crumble. But city officials had not found any major street failures caused by the flooding, said city engineer Corbitt Kerr.

"Most of the issues we've noticed are on fringe of roadway," Kerr said. "We haven't had a full failure of roadway that we've identified."

Overall, FEMA has traditionally set a high standard to qualify for disaster relief grants. For example, in late June 2015, a front of severe thunderstorms pounded multiple Indiana counties and led to 10 deaths, including a 14-year-old Winona Lake boy who was killed by a falling tree limb. But FEMA denied Gov. Mike Pence's request for aid, arguing that the damage was actually caused by multiple storms and not one continuous weather disaster.

Once local officials have tallied all the damage, the Department of Homeland Security and Pence will decide whether to seek help from the federal government. If the South Bend area's flooding does not qualify for FEMA grants, residents may have another source of help in the form of low-interest loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration, said Erickson, the state homeland security spokesman.

Chris Elmerick is among the South Bend residents who aren't counting on much help from the government.

Elmerick, who had three houses and a small apartment building damaged along Jackson Road, said he and other residents needed aid because most people either did not have flood insurance, or their policies simply would not cover certain forms of flooding. But he acknowledged FEMA was likely concerned with even more devastating disasters, such as the deadly flooding in Louisiana.

"There's quite a bit of frustration and just figuring out what to do for your family," Elmerick said. "Of course, you have Baton Rouge and the wildfire in California that are bigger, unfortunately, and that's how it's looked at -- size."

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