The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved an extended deadline Tuesday for Illinois to conduct damage assessments from extreme flooding this Spring.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker formally requested the extension saying the state needed more time to assess the extent of the damage.
Pritzker has declared over a third of Illinois counties’ disasters due to flooding this year including Knox.
The original deadline for submission was August 2. The state now has until September 3 to request federal assistance.
Knox County Emergency Management Coordinator Tom Simkins believes that the state wants to make the best case it can to federal agencies, which often comes down to how much cost there was in damages.
He says Knox, along with Peoria and Tazewell counties had their Preliminary Damage Assessment with FEMA Monday to go over public assistance requests.
The City of Galesburg submitted a request for $40,000 related to costs in fueling the generator at the water treatment plant in Oquawka.
“Then we had three townships in Knox County; Percival, Rio and Haw Creek that had some landslides on to roads so we had a total of about $210,000, ” Simkins says.
Illinois’ entire Congressional delegation, Republicans and Democrats, wrote a letter Monday to FEMA in support of Pritzker’s request.
The delegation writes that the flooding from February to July is unlike anything Illinois has seen since the Great Mississippi Flood of 1937.
