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Washington County Emergency Management’s Executive Director Kary Cox went ahead and extended the Disaster Declaration for the County on Monday.

Washington County Emergency Management will try to make a case for the County that disaster recovery is an on-going issue. Cox said what the Federal Emergency Management Agency has paid to fix has - for the most part - washed away.

Because of the continuing weather issues and the damages that have stemmed from that, the County has to go back and do the work again.

Cox said he will discuss with FEMA about the damages that have occurred since the June 9th deadline. He said whether they will be successful or not is yet to be seen. They will not know until they start to write project worksheets and get a response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Any damages after June 9th would not technically be included in this Disaster Declaration. Cox said there have been a lot of changes to the way FEMA has worked  this disaster. He said most of those changes have been positive.

In addition, Washington County has not heard anything regarding the Public Assistance Declaration yet. This affects the County’s roads, bridges and infrastructure.

Over the weekend, Governor Kevin Stitt sent a request in for 40 additional Counties to be added to the Public Assistance Declaration. With the number of Counties on the list, it may take some time for FEMA to process the request before it hits President Donald Trumps desk. 

Cox said he does not expect to see results from that with this being a holiday week. He said he may be surprised, but he believes they will not hear anything until next week.

The County believes they have a good case to be made about adding damages after the Federal Emergency Management Agency's June 9th deadline.