City Council Extends Disaster Declaration, Approves $1.35 Million in Flood Debris Contracts

SAN ANGELO, TX — The San Angelo City Council on Thursday voted unanimously to extend the city’s disaster declaration for 90 days following the July 4 storm and flash flooding that damaged hundreds of homes and infrastructure across the city.

Interim City Attorney Brandon Dyson said, “The government code only allows that to continue for seven days, and tomorrow would be our seventh day. So we need City Council to approve an order continuing it. The very minimum, we think, is 90 to 120 days as the estimated time for this.”

Mayor Tom Thompson said, “I would hope we can do this in less than three months. So I would suggest that we stick with the 90 days. It’s just a goal and a minimum timeline." 

The council voted 7-0 to extend the declaration.

Council members also unanimously approved two emergency contracts totaling up to $1.35 million for debris removal and monitoring services.

Shane Kelton, Public Works Director, said of the debris removal contract with Ceres Environmental, “This will be for a task order specific to this event, moving forward with an amount not to exceed $1 million. If for some reason we find more debris or there are other issues that arise during this time, we will bring another action back to council before moving forward with anything else.”

Kelton explained the timeline for debris removal, saying, “After this action today, we will provide notice to proceed, and they will start mobilizing crews to San Angelo next week.” He added, “We’ll be trying to be out there with some citizens as we’re going through, especially in the hardest-hit areas, working with property owners, homeowners, and residents to make sure they’re prepared and ready as crews arrive, so we can follow the FEMA guidelines that have been laid out.”

Kelton cautioned residents about debris placement: “As you know, we don’t want to put people in a rush, in a bind. They’ve been through a traumatic event. But again, want to reiterate the importance of getting all of this to the curb if and if people are not able to, if they are not physically able to or don’t have the means or manpower, we do have a lot of assistance coming to this town that’s going to be free of charge for people to be able to utilize, and so we want them to make sure they reach out for that assistance, to make sure we don’t have people living in in dangerous situations, or their house becoming a dangerous situation to live in.”

Kelton reported damage assessments so far show, “Just through our damage surveys that we’ve done, looking at 1,520 surveys that have been completed, 294 affected homes, 705 of them with minor damage. 463 with major damage, and 58 that are basically, how the form goes, it would be considered destroyed. Now, not all of those were like the ones that were swept off their slabs, but again, sustained enough damage that they met the threshold within the state guidelines to be considered destroyed, a complete loss.”

The council also approved a $350,000 emergency contract with True North Emergency Management, LLC, for debris monitoring services, required for potential FEMA reimbursement. Kelton said, “This is the second part of that first one that we discussed a while ago, as [Ceres] comes in here and does this, they are required to have a third party monitoring firm that watches everything as they are actually loading the product from the curb into their trucks, to make sure that the all the loads are consistent and they’re not intermingled. And then they also have to be there at the landfill as the trucks pull into the landfill and are weighed, and they have to identify that and actually quantify, visually, what’s in the truck. This is one of those FEMA guidelines requirements for us to be able to seek any assistance that may be available to us.”

Council announced a press conference is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at City Hall to provide further updates.