Storm Damage Assessed By State In Carlton County

County Reps Crunch Numbers On Flooding

During the week of July 10th Carlton County was struck with heavy rain drainage systems throughout the county overflowed causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to public infrastructure.

August 16th, County representatives broke down numbers with the state trying to figure out just how much money the county needs to recover. If the storm relief is handled at the state level the state will provide 75% of the funds with the other 25% coming from the area’s of the county applying for aid.

Current state regulations make co–ops, like Lake Country Power, ineligible for that relief funding.

Public Assistance Engineer, Wayne Lamoreaux explains, “They do receive funding in the event of a federal disaster, they receive 75% of federal funds, but they do not receive the 25% match of the state funds in a federal disaster either.”

Now if the storm damages across all 10 Minnesota counties is greater than 7.4 million dollars the region will be eligible for federal aid. In that case the state would pay 25% of the recovery cost with the Federal Government covering the other 75%.

At this time they predict the overall damage numbers will be significantly less than what’s needed for federal money, meaning its most likely the storm recovery funding will be handled at the state level.