Travis County Commissioners Court
April 5, 2005
Item 39
39. Consider and take appropriate action on request to have Travis County declared a federal disaster area under fema guidelines as a result of damage sustained on Friday, March 25, 2005. I put this item on the agenda because I have gotten several inquiries from residents after citizens -- during citizens communication last week.
>> pete.
>> pete baldwin, Travis County emergency management coordinator. I had that little backup memo yesterday morning into each of your offices. Explaining a little more detail about what we have been seeing, what we have to have for declaring disaster now. The judge and I discussed it and as of yesterday morning the judge signed the disaster declaration; therefore allowing me to request state assistance to review our damage assessment. They will be here today and I will be out in the field with them showing them, we will be looking at what we have got going back and reviewing, making sure that we haven't missed anything. Once again at this point in time, we have not met that threshold for either small business administration loan and/or certainly not for our presidential, but we will go back out and review all of that, take a look at it and just ensure ourselves that we haven't missed anything. The numbers that we see reported in the media, the 60 to $100 million damages within the county, those are insured losses and primarily those are automobile insurance claims that have been filed very quickly. So -- so the big hailstorm, it's not hard to put up some pretty good sized numbers, but most of those are insured. What we are looking for is -- is the uninsured loss. That is what really triggers any kind of assistance we can get to the county. So we will be out -- we will be out in the littig area this afternoon, then in hudson bend either tomorrow or Thursday.
>> does the deductible on somebody's insurance coverage count towards the cumulative?
>> no, ma'am.
>> because --
>> it's strictly the uninsured loss.
>> because we have an item 29 talking about the damage that was done to our own vehicles out at sat 2 and -- and we will barely get to the ductible on this. There may be a little bit over, thunderstorm of that would count?
>> no, ma'am. None of that would count?
>> no, ma'am.
>> I guess with the amount of dam that was done in the -- in the littig area, and other parts of the county, specifically looking at littig because I understand that there was a lot of uninsured situations out there, is there any relief -- is there any other avenues of relief.
>> not from the federal or state standpoint. Under the federal guidelines we either get a small business administration designation whereas we have to show 25 homes with major damage or if we file for -- if we look for the presidential, that's upwards of 800 homes plus 20 something million. We have been through the legislature several times asking for the state to look at setting aside something for -- just for purposes just like this. It's not a great enough magnitude to trigger the federal response. But the -- beyond that, beyond red cross going out and giving some tarps and/or cleanup supplies or immediate assistance, they can house them overnight or temporarily house them. But there's nothing -- there's no really good stopgap in between.
>> okay.
>> so residents have uninsured places resulting from damage done on Friday, March 25th,.
>> March 25th. But --
>> yes, sir, we can make sure that we include all of those.
>> that is the any member of Commissioners court or the emergency services office of Travis County, that number is 854 --
>> if they will call 974-97 -- 974-0450, that will -- we will take all of those call there's.
>> repeat that.
>> 974-0450. That goes into our main office.
>> the law is kind of funny in that you have 10 days after the -- after the incident to file the disaster declaration. So our deadline was yesterday. Which is why I went ahead and signed it. If we waited until today we missed the deadline.
>> right.
>> right. The other thing is when the county does the disaster declaration, that's tantamount to asking the state to come in and help certify the amount of uninsured damage, right?
>> that's specifically what we asked for. Usually when you declare a disaster declaration, it means that your resources have been exhausted, whether it's bulldozers, whether it's whatever. In this particular instance, we declared this disaster declaration specifically asked for assistance on damage assessment. And that -- that is what we will be getting.
>> the state coordinator, jack collie has sent a letter yesterday where he says that they will be working with us through the rest of today, 1:00 p.m.
>> right.
>> okay.
>> appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. Residents with uninsured damages as a result of the coordinator like -- like disaster, if you would contact Travis County, a member of the Commissioners court or the emergency services office, so we can take the damage, uninsured damage into account.
>> we just don't want to miss anything. We know where the primary pockets of damage are, but we just don't want to miss anything out there. So thank you.
>> thank you very much.
>> so there's no action that we need to take take?
>> keep on keeping on I guess.
>> not a problem. We have this back on with a follow-up report. I imagine interested residents would want to know what the outcome was.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 5, 2005 3:19 PM