Congressman Eric Sorensen visits Fulton County to survey damage from July storms
FULTON COUNTY, Ill. (WMBD) — Congressmen Eric Sorensen (D-17) visited Fulton County Thursday evening to assess damage from the severe storms that swept through the area in mid-July.
Fulton County leaders, and Illinois Emergency Management Agency representatives sat down with the congressman to explain the damage and what problems they are facing.
Canton Mayor, Kent McDowell said residents in Canton are dealing with sewer back-up because of the overflow from flooding caused by the storms. He also said several roads and culverts have been washed away. He said school starts soon and harvest is 2 months away and residents need to use these roads.
“School is going to start in two weeks. So they’re going have to reroute the busses,” he said. “Then you have harvest coming up and those people have to get their crops to the market.”
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Fulton County and IEMA leaders said they have been trying to get federal help but keep running into roadblocks. Leaders said in order to get help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the area needs to meet certain benchmarks. There needs to be $23.6 in uninsured damages, which Fulton County is having trouble meeting.
“Once we reached the benchmark, then the governor reaches out to the president and then there is an official disaster declaration,” Representative Sorensen said. “One of the things that we’ve got to be able to do, especially in areas like this, that are very, very rural, that are hard to reach that benchmark, we need to make sure that the federal government is treating small towns, rural communities, equitably.”
Sorensen surveyed North Bethel Road near Bryant where the road completely buckled. He also visited Cuba, where residents dealt with severe flooding.
Sorensen said something has to change. He says bigger cities and rural areas should be treated the same.
“It shouldn’t happen that you know what, a curvy street suburb somewhere that has a flood. They can get to $23 million in damages really quickly than the federal government comes in and gives them a hand,” he said. “But you know what? Out here, $23 million. That’s a lot of money. We’re never going to reach that benchmark.”
Sorensen plans to take what he learned from the Fulton County leaders to Washington D.C. and work to change the process to receive federal help to assess storm damage.