Kentucky County Still Tackling the Effects of Storms From 2009-2010

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A southern Kentucky county is still tackling the effects of and cleaning up from two major storms in recent years.

Warren County officials said the cleanup from the 2009 ice storm and 2010 flooding could take into 2014.

Bowling Green and Warren County Emergency Management Director Ronnie Pearson told The Daily News that delays in approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are the main reason work has yet to be completed or contracts with FEMA have yet to be closed out for those disasters.

“We could easily be working on these disasters up to 2013, 2014,” Pearson said.

Last week, Warren County Fiscal Court approved contract renewals with FEMA through June 2014 for both disasters.

The 2009 ice storm and floods in 2010 and 2011 were three of the largest modern disasters in Kentucky history. The state is also in FEMA Region IV, which covers the southeastern United States. The region has been the most active region in recent years.

The total estimated cost of projects for the county related to flood recovery was nearly $1.2 million, Pearson said. Insurance covered a portion of those costs, as did state and federal emergency management offices and the county.

FEMA is also holding back 10 percent of the money granted to the county for disaster recovery from ice storms in 2009, he said. That’s standard procedure for contracts for public aid before a contract is closed out to make sure all the work is done properly and paperwork completed.

“Warren County was not hit nearly as hard as the rest of the state was,” Pearson said.

Warren County Fiscal Court has received payments of about $96,500 from FEMA and the state to help cover expenses created by the ice storm, such as overtime for road crews who cleaned up in the aftermath, according to a Kentucky Emergency Management database.

Payments of about $274,300 have come to county government for damage created during floods in 2010, according to the database.