Tom Green County Officials Detail Next Steps in Flood Recovery Effort

SAN ANGELO, TX — Tom Green County officials held a press conference Friday at City Hall to share updates following the July 4 floods, including the next steps after President Donald Trump’s major disaster declaration for the county for individual assistance support from FEMA.

“This is huge. This is everything that we’ve been working towards with our volunteer efforts,” said county judge Lane Carter, who praised the efforts of volunteers helping input information into the state’s iSTAT system.

“The first couple of days, we had resting around 80 to 85 entries. After the volunteers were trained and out into the communities, those efforts boosted those numbers over 1,500 entries.”

Mayor Tom Thompson said that while the recovery effort has been outstanding so far, there is still a lot of work ahed.

“I want everybody to understand our job is not done. This is just really the first step. The FEMA declaration opens a door for us to move forward. It opens for potential reimbursement of funds, and that is critical to how we progress,” Thompson said.

Jose Rivera, the county’s Emergency Management Coordinator, directed all affected residents to visit DisasterAssistance.gov to submit their Individual Assistance application for FEMA aid.

“FEMA Individual Assistance may help the survivor be eligible for home repair, rental assistance, housing assistance, and personal property,” Rivera said. “Currently, our jurisdiction, the city and the county, are working on trying to obtain a PA declaration, a Public Assistance declaration, so that our city and county agencies can help recoup some of the expenses on the damages and losses that they experienced during the flood.”

Rivera said that local businesses are eligible for aid after a disaster declaration from the U.S. Small Business Administration

It was also announced that the Disaster Resource Center (DRC) is moving from PaulAnn Baptist Church to the Concho Valley Transit, 510 N. Chadbourne St.

Residents are encouraged to visit sanangelo.gov/july4 and United Way of the Concho Valley’s social media pages for ongoing updates.

Kamryn Cummings, Chair of the San Angelo COAD (Community Organizations Active in Disasters) and Director at United Way of the Concho Valley, gave an update on emergency grants.

“Those emergency grants have not started yet. So if you are being told that you can receive those grants right now and you can go to PaulAnn, that is not true, so please bear with us,” Cummings said. “There will be information coming out, either through San Angelo Area Foundation, the city, and the COAD, which is using United Way of the Concho Valley’s Facebook page right now.”

Mike Burnett, executive director of the Concho Valley Community Action Agency, said, “As of 8 a.m. this morning, we have seen just shy of 800 households come through PaulAnn in seven days, and that’s representing over 1,900 individuals. … We placed 140 households into an emergency shelter. We’re doing non-congregate shelter at hotels.”

Burnett described the upcoming cleanup phase.

“The next step that we are looking at is what is affectionately known as muck and gut, but this is the cleaning out of houses, and this has already been going on,” Burnett said.

He also said that CVCA has already contacted utility providers in the area and made arrangements for them to not disconnect anyone affected.

Matt Lewis, President and CEO of the San Angelo Area Foundation, said, “We’ve received 800 donations in the last seven days to the Disaster Relief Fund. On Monday morning, we had an emergency board meeting at the Area Foundation, and talked with the Board of Directors of the Health Foundation, and both foundations committed a quarter of a million dollars each to the disaster response.”

“I’m excited to say…we’re sitting over a million dollars in the Disaster Relief Fund as of right now.”

Police Chief Travis Griffith gave an update on crime, saying it had been low, but noted that there were still complaints of people committing theft and damage to the properties of flood victims.

Griffith said the San Angelo Police Department was working on releasing an updated map for areas that will be restricted for overnight access to non-residents.

Officials said another press conference is likely next week.