Presidential Disaster Declaration granted For Texas counties

(Feb. 9, 2016 – From the Office of the Governor Gregg Abbott) On January 26th, Governor Greg Abbott requested a Presidential Disaster Declaration for 25 Texas counties due to damage sustained from the severe weather at the end of December. This morning, the President granted the request for Public Assistance for the following 25 counties: Bailey, Castro, Childress, Cochran, Dallas, Deaf Smith, Dickens, Ellis, Hall, Hardeman, Harrison, Henderson, Hopkins, Kaufman, Kent, King, Lamb, Lubbock, Navarro, Parmer, Rains, Red River, Rockwall, Titus, and Van Zandt.

“I want to thank the President and FEMA for granting my request for a disaster declaration in these 25 Texas counties,” said Governor Abbott. “We will continue to work with our FEMA partners to rebuild these counties and ensure that they come back stronger than ever.”

Governor Abbott’s request for Individual Assistance for the following six Texas counties remains under review: Collin, Dallas, Ellis, Franklin, Rockwall and Van Zandt.

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There are three separate types of assistance provided by the Federal government in disasters: Individual Assistance (IA), Public Assistance (PA), and Small Business Administration (SBA).

Individual Assistance is used to help individual property and home owners who are uninsured or underinsured.

The second type is Public Assistance, which is used to help cities and counties recover a portion of the costs associated with the disaster, such as infrastructure repairs, debris removal, etc.

The third type is the SBA’s Disaster Assistance Loans. The SBA offers assistance not only to small businesses, but also to homeowners and renters. If the Federal government declares a major disaster declaration for Individual Assistance, the SBA’s disaster loan program is automatically activated. However, the SBA may make a separate “SBA only” declaration if FEMA is not involved.

Source: www.ci.rowlett.tx.us

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