Deadline passes, FEMA continues recovery help

Published 5:34 pm Thursday, January 26, 2017

The deadline for registering for federal disaster-recovery assistance for victims of Hurricane Matthew and subsequent flooding has passed, but Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are not leaving North Carolina yet.

“Much work remains to be done in North Carolina, and FEMA continues working with North Carolina Emergency Management to help survivors and communities recover,” reads a FEMA news release.

FEMA encourages those who registered for assistance to keep in touch with FEMA to track their claims or to notify FEMA about changes to their mailing or email addresses or phone numbers, report insurance settlements or report additional damages they discovered since their homes were inspected by FEMA inspectors.

There are three ways to reach FEMA:

  • online at DisasterAssistance.gov.
  • call the FEMA Helpline at 800-621-3362 for voice, 711 and Video Relay Service. If you are deaf, hard of hearing or have a speech disability and use a TTY, call 800-462-7585.
  • download the FEMA mobile app.

As of Monday’s registration deadline, Beaufort County had 692 registrations, with $323,533 in assistance approved.

“Registrations will continue to be worked and approved until each qualified survivor is served,” wrote Laura Guzman, a FEMA spokeswoman, in an email.

There are 834 FEMA employees working throughout the state, according to Guzman.

At the end of the registration period:

  • more than 80,700 survivors have contacted FEMA for assistance.
  • the number of approved registrations thus far is 28,446.
  • more than $90.1 million have been approved for individuals and families.
  • more than $84.2 million in SBA low-interest disaster loans for homeowners, renters and business owners have been approved.
  • more than 5,700 National Flood Insurance Program claims have been submitted.
  • nearly $134 million have been paid on approved NFIP claims.

FEMA and NCEM operated 20 disaster recovery centers. More than 28,000 people have visited the centers located throughout the 45 designated counties to receive information and advice for their recovery efforts.

In addition, disaster survivor assistance teams have visited more than 84,000 homes and talked to almost 44,000 survivors about how FEMA can help in recovery efforts, to answer survivors’ questions and, if needed, to assist with helping survivors register.

Public assistance work is well under way with its task of reimbursing state, tribal and local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations for their recovery work. To date, more than $8 million have been obligated. The public assistance program is administered by NCEM and funded by FEMA.

Washington officials estimate the city’s expenses related to Hurricane Matthew at $377,801.64, and it wants the federal government and state government to reimburse it for eligible expenses. The city’s nearly $378,000 in storm-related expenditures include overtime salaries, fuel, food, safety gear such as boots, debris removal and equipment repair. Adjustments will be made as expenditures and reimbursement claims are finalized, according to a city document.

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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