Led by County disaster response personnel, state and federal representatives on Thursday viewed the damage caused to homes and businesses in the San Bernardino Mountains by the late-winter blizzard. With the coordination of the County Fire Marshal and personnel from Land Use Services, the Preliminary Damage Assessment team were able to identify approximately six more damaged properties that were not on the original damaged property list.
The County is pushing for the state to add San Bernardino County to the list of California counties for which Gov. Newsom has requested a Major Disaster Declaration from President Biden. Such a declaration could eventually make mountain residents and businesses eligible for various forms of federal assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Small Business Administration, or SBA.
On March 14 the County submitted an Initial Damage Estimate to the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) reporting $143,185,056 in losses to private property. At the time, the County knew of 302 damaged homes, 42 of which had been destroyed and 38 others having sustained major damage. Out of 46 nonresidential/commercial properties listed, 10 were marked destroyed and seven were listed with major damage.
An additional $16,633,550 in costs and losses were reported for public agencies. This included debris removal, emergency protective measures, roads and bridges, public buildings and equipment, and personnel overtime costs.
Two representatives each from FEMA, the SBA, and Cal OES spent all day Thursday with staff from the County Office of Emergency Services, County Public Works, County Land Use Services, the County Assessor-Recorder-Clerk, and the County Fire Marshal driving through mountain neighborhoods and business districts to verify some of the details in what the County reported in the Initial Damage Estimate. The tour continues today.
It is not known when or if the tour will result in a state request to the president or a subsequent presidential declaration, or how long it would take after a presidential declaration to determine what if any federal aid will be available to mountain residents, or what the process will be for accessing the aid.
The County will continue to make the strongest possible case for opening all forms of assistance to mountain residents and businesses. In the meantime, residents who sustained property damage are urged to work with their insurance carriers to fund and proceed with repairs.
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