Conn. Requests $300M in Federal Relief After August Flooding

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(TNS) — Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont on Monday formally requested hundreds of millions of dollars in federal disaster relief for the state after the historic Aug. 18 flooding that destroyed some 80 businesses and 19 homes.

Six of the homes destroyed were in Fairfield County and 13 in New Haven County, while 170 other houses sustained major damage and an additional 133 houses were found to be inaccessible following the storm damage.

Preliminary damage estimates for federal support total $206 million, plus $13 million to repair massive erosion damage along the Waterbury line of the Metro-North Railroad, particularly along a 200-foot-long section in Seymour. Costs under the Federal Highway Administration are estimated in excess of $50 million. Another $40 million in estimated damages to a long-term care facility run by the state Department of Developmental Services was reported, as well as $7.45 million in damages to property owned by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

About 615 houses were found to have received minor damage under the guidelines of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had personnel in recent weeks observing and visiting about 2,000 homes in the 10-town area.

“It is a credit to the reporting efforts of the municipalities and the residents that the FEMA/Small Business Administration team only identified four homes as unaffected,” said the state’s request for a major disaster declaration from President Joe Biden for Fairfield County, Litchfield County, and New Haven County.

“The storm caused three deaths and significant destruction of homes, businesses, roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, disrupting everyday life in the affected communities,” Gov. Ned Lamont wrote in an eight-page cover letter for disaster relief released late Monday afternoon. A rainfall map indicates that Oxford was the focus of a so-called 1,000-year storm, in which between 12.17 and 14.83 inches of rain fell, creating raging streams and life-threatening conditions.

The state is asking for individual assistance for homeowners, with a subsequent request for public assistance coming when state and local agencies finish a joint preliminary damage assessment. The maximum assistance for disasters in the current federal budget year is $42,500 for housing assistance and $42,500 for other needs assistance.

The Small Business Administration found that 77 business sustained major damage and 51 received minor damage. The SBA determined that 77 businesses suffered major damages and 51 received minor damage.

The public assistance portion of the application would reimburse state and local governments for repairing some of the damage to public property such as roads, bridges, infrastructure, schools, parks and municipal building.

Lamont is also asking to join FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which is aimed at long-term resiliency to protect people from future natural disasters.

“On the morning of August 18th, computer modeling was forecasting showers and thunderstorms in western Connecticut that had the potential to deliver two to three inches of rainfall over the course of the day,” Lamont recalled in his request. “At approximately 7:00 am, a wide band of heavy showers developed in southwestern Connecticut. Unfortunately, reality did not match the forecasts. Up to 15 inches of rain fell in 6-8 hours in some locations. The band of showers and thunderstorms intensified over Fairfield County from 8:00 to 11:00 am as rainfall rates exceeded 1 inch per hour at times.”

State data include a variety of historic rainfall levels, from the 1,000-year occurrences to 50, 100, 200 and 500 year. “Instead of the 1-2 inches that were estimated, the peak rainfall exceeded 3 inches of water per hour, and 7 inches in three hours in a band from the Town of Monroe in Fairfield County to the Town of Oxford in New Haven County,” the FEMA application said.

Lamont stressed that Connecticut does not have a county form of government, “so there is no additional layer of government assistance to help these residents and municipalities.” He said that the preliminary damage assessment team visited 16 towns. More than 300 businesses self-reported damage, such as the more than a dozen stores in the Klarides Village shopping center in Seymour, where the Little River, which first destroyed buildings upstream in Oxford, overflowed its banks. Lamont visited the site a few days later to announce an emergency $5 million state program aimed at providing $25,000 checks to store owners in the short term.

“People who live in the communities impacted by this historic storm are shaken as many of them have experienced significant damage to their homes and businesses and need support to rebuild and recover,” Lamont said in a statement. “My administration continues to work with the impacted areas to take the steps we need to ensure a speedy and full recovery.”