MERCER COUNTY, W.Va. – The leading federal disaster relief agency will be going door to door in Mercer County for a first hand look at Hurricane Helene’s effects on the area.
Representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be talking with the people who reported storm damage from the remnants of Helene. Leaders in Mercer County are encouraging people who reported storm damage to talk with these representatives so they can tell their stories directly to FEMA.
“They’re going to start in Bluefield then they’re going to target the western side of the county. They’re going to look at the Montcalm-Lashmeet area going that way because there was a lot of damage through the hollows and unfortunately you saw personal property but you also saw a lot of infrastructure damage,” said Mercer County Commissioner Greg Puckett.
FEMA reps say it’s vital for their teams to get first-person accounts. These individual stories will be bundled together in a group that will determine if the county qualifies for federal assistance.
“There’s no exact threshold per say. What we are really looking at is does the capacity that exists at the local level, is that exceeded by the amount of assistance that might be required to help those who have been impacted to recover to get back on the road to recovery,” said Ted Tuthill, emergency management specialist for FEMA.
Tuthill says once the teams finish their damage assessments, the next step is to take the information to the governor’s office which then decides what they would like to request as part of a federal declaration for assistance. It’s then looked at by FEMA and The White House to determine if there is a need for assistance.
“This is a process which we’re familiar with in West Virginia that gets hit a lot by these types of disasters. We have a very cooperative relationship with state and local emergency managers. As much information as we can gather we will put that in to the considerations that go forward,” said Tuthill.
Leaders from FEMA making their way around the county will be accompanied by county and city employees. The FEMA teams are expected to take until Wednesday to perform assessments.
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