KOKOMO – Since the start of 2013, Howard County has seen three denials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency – and after last year’s tornadoes, which destroyed or damaged more than 1,000 buildings, local officials were told an application wasn’t even worth their time.
It’s a process that has long frustrated those at the top of Kokomo and Howard County’s governments – people who have seen natural disasters become a semi-regular part of the job in recent years.
The frustration and confusion associated with the three denials – which came following the 2013 flood and tornado, and 2014 snowstorm – has not dissipated in subsequent years, and a handful of Kokomo and Howard County officials were not hesitant to address those decisions.
“When you’re standing amongst the damage, and you’re looking at it, it’s really hard to believe you don’t meet a threshold like that,” said Howard County Commissioner Paul Wyman. “When people are totally losing their homes and you’re looking around at a neighborhood that has a tremendous amount of devastation, it’s very disheartening.”
To receive funding through the Federal Reimbursement Program, the following thresholds must each be met in uninsured damage: the county’s population multiplied by $3.57 (for instance, Howard County must have experienced $295,425 in uninsured damage) and Indiana’s population multiplied by $1.41, which comes to a total of $9.2 million in uninsured costs.
A declaration of a major disaster must also be requested by the governor within 30 days of the incident, and it must then be declared by the president of the United States.
To receive any funding from FEMA – which also requires meticulous record-keeping as specific as chainsaw horsepower during recovery efforts – each requirement must be fulfilled, no matter how bad the damage sustained by an individual county.
Those thresholds have proven too high for Howard County.
About recent disasters, Kokomo city controller Randy Morris explained that “it was catastrophic for Howard County, particularly the city of Kokomo due to where these events occurred; however, it wasn’t catastrophic across the state, across the area that requires the declaration from the president to be considered as a FEMA disaster.”
“I think the way it is figured for submission is too high,” Morris added later, also critiquing the small 30-day application window. As an example, Morris said the city still has problems at Kokomo Beach in response to the 2013 flood.
“If you look, on one of those events, 11 counties were affected, and it still did not get to the number…When only one-tenth of the state is affected, and you don’t qualify, that’s a shame for that one-tenth.”
Morris, who highlighted the likelihood of “recurring events” based on climate change, said he would like to see some sort of aid program set up for individual counties.
The situation, which has included at least one fruitless appeal, has been no less frustrating for Howard County Emergency Management Agency Director Janice Hart.
As reported by then CNHI Statehouse reporter Maureen Hayden in April 2014, FEMA’s initial denial, and subsequent appeal denial, of post-tornado help was a bitter blow. FEMA had already denied a request after floods in April 2013 caused more than $17 million in damage in the community.
Just weeks after it turned down the tornado-related request, FEMA said no to a plea for help covering more than $9 million in costs from a massive winter storm that shut down half the state – including Kokomo – for a week.
“It’s very frustrating. It’s bad enough if you’re hit once, but we had homeowners who were hit again,” said Hart on Friday, looking back at those denials. “And the idea of not being able to help them at all, it’s heartbreaking.”
“I do wish the dollar amount was lower for us to make it,” she added later, noting that low-interest disaster loans sometimes made available by the U.S. Small Business Administration do little to make up for a lack of federal aid.
Following last year’s tornadoes, Indiana Department of Homeland Security spokesman John Erickson explained to the Tribune the thought process behind not applying for direct FEMA aid.
Erickson said Homeland Security, in conjunction with Howard County and Kokomo officials, chose not to apply for assistance from FEMA, largely because the majority of damage in Howard County was insured.
For FEMA to grant Individual Assistance, or offer help to homeowners and renters, significant portions of damage must be uninsured, noted Erickson.
“The data was just not there,” he said. “The thing about tornadoes is they are violent and nasty and cause a lot of damage. But most is insured, and when it is insured it does not meet FEMA criteria.
“We just weren’t even in the ballpark to apply.”
Following the Nov. 17, 2013, tornadoes, FEMA denied the county any federal aid despite state officials estimating the city could require $4.54 million in direct federal aid and more than $10.5 million in disaster assistance loans.
Erickson said that denial, which happened during the initial application and on appeal, impacted last year’s decision not to apply.
“We have a lot of experience with FEMA, we have a good handle on what comes close, and this didn’t come close to the criteria for requesting,” he said at the time.
Moving forward, Hart said the process of receiving aid is likely to change, in multiple ways.
“Honestly, the declarations anymore, it’s going to be catastrophic,” said Hart. “It’s going to be these hurricanes, it’s going to be the wildfires in California, not a tornado.
“I think what we’re going to end up having to do, is the state legislature is going to have to do it. We’re going to have to start getting money from the state, if at all possible."
But in a community that’s seen more than its share of natural disasters, it’s hard not to feel like Kokomo and Howard County is, in many respects, on its own.
“One of the arguments I was making to FEMA at the time and to our congressman was, ok, if we didn’t meet the threshold in this one given scenario, look at what Howard County has been through over a short term period with major snow and ice storm, flooding and two tornadoes,” said Wyman.
“Why couldn’t FEMA look at it from a cumulative standpoint, and say, ‘Wow, that community has been hit extremely hard in a short period of time, with multiple incidents, so we are going to offer them some assistance?'”
Wyman – who expressed his belief that mitigating circumstances and increased flexibility should be considered by the federal government, including case-by-case management – had one question: What about the money we’ve given them?
“Our community, we send a tremendous amount of tax dollars to the federal government, and when you end up in these disaster-type situations, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have an expectation that some of those tax dollars would come back to our community in the form of assistance,” noted Wyman.
“And so, when you’re standing there in the middle of it, it can be disheartening.”