Governor Tate Reeves is officially requesting that President Donald Trump issue a major disaster declaration for more than a dozen Mississippi counties after severe weather in mid-March killed seven and displaced dozens more.
On the weekend of March 14 - 15, a strong front of storms moving across the southern plains produced 18 tornadoes across Mississippi, the worst of which hit rural communities in Walthall County.
In Northeast Mississippi, flooding in some areas was severe, and in total, more than 200 homes were destroyed statewide, while hundreds more received substantial damage.
Michael McEwen
Tylertown
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The strongest tornado produced by that storm system, rated an EF-4 with winds of 170 miles per hour, dealt the most damage to rural Walthall County, in southern Mississippi, and traveled 65 miles from Louisiana before fizzling out near Prentiss.
Royce McKee, executive director of the Walthall County Emergency Management Agency, says there’s an estimated 250,000 tons – and counting – of debris that needs to be removed in Walthall alone.
At a cost of roughly $30 per ton, that job alone will run the county more than $7 million, an unimaginable figure for the primarily rural, sparsely populated county where much of the land is used for agricultural production and forestry.
“It's significant, and a small county can't cover that on its own -- you have to have federal help to do that. What we're doing and working so hard on is what we have to do to meet the declarations. We've done that, now we're just waiting on a federal declaration to go,” McKee told MPB News from his command center in Tylertown.
“Hopefully now we're to the point where most of the electricity will be back on, and most of the water will be on, and there will be some semblance of food. But then we’ve got to deal with trying to get long term care for the people that don't have houses.”
Along with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, or MEMA, McKee and his team have been working to compile data on the extent of damage, both to personal property, like homes, and public property, like roads and bridges.
That’s because federal disaster relief funds, administered by FEMA, are broken down into two categories: individual assistance, which is directed to homeowners or renters, and public assistance, which is directed to damaged civic buildings, roads, bridges and other forms of public infrastructure.
According to Gov. Reeves’ request, formally sent to the White House on April 1, 14 counties in Mississippi are in need of individual assistance, which has to be explicitly approved by the President.
For public assistance to be granted, combined damage must equal or exceed $5.6 million total, as set by Congress. According to Eric Bullard, with MEMA, damage to public infrastructure in 17 counties statewide is close to reaching $20 million already.
“Individual assistance goes directly to the homeowners, to the families. It could be some grants for temporary housing or home repairs, It could be some loans to cover uninsured property losses, and just other programs that would help individuals recover from the effects of a disaster,” he said.
“But we're making progress. Recovery is not something that happens overnight – it's going to take a long time. It's going to take months, and in some cases it could take years. It's a process, but MEMA is going to be here through the entire process.”
In most natural disasters, the formal request for federal aid marks the beginning of the recovery process in earnest.
Mounds of debris piled along roadways will soon be cleared by crews contracted by local government, and as services like power and water are gradually restored, those displaced from their homes will either find new accommodations or will begin the process of rebuilding, both done through federal relief funds.
But the process itself can often be long and amorphous, especially in the rural, dispersed communities of Walthall County. Royce McKee says the federal funds can provide a stable basis for that process to unfold.
“We've got so many homes that's gonna have to be done. Hopefully the people that's here don't decide to move on in some place else, but it'll take a long time to get rebuilt. We've got 49 houses completely destroyed, and another 50 or so with major damage, and most of the trailer houses that we have are total losses.It’s going to take a while,” said McKee.
On Wednesday, only a day after Gov. Reeves formally requested that President Trump approve disaster aid for Mississippi, the state's congressional delegation joined the effort. Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, as well as representatives Bennie Thompson, Trent Kelly, Michael Guest and Mike Ezell, all endorsed a letter urging the White House to provide swift approval.
A letter endorsed by the entirety of Mississippi's congressional delegation asking President Trump to approve the state's disaster relief request.
