South Dakota leaders are examining which dollars from where can help places like Wessington Springs recover from storm damage. Citizens in the town of 1,000 people are cleaning extensive damage from a tornado on June 18th.
South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard is impressed with the progress he sees in Wessington Springs one week after a tornado destroyed more than two dozen homes. He says some state resources and block grants may help the city with major municipal projects. That way Wessington Springs leaders can use city money to restore groundwork damaged in the storm.
Daugaard says FEMA estimators are in Wessington Springs assessing the damage. That’s ahead of his request for a presidential disaster declaration.
"Usually what that means is that there’s dollars to help fix roads that were damaged, fix the parks, put up the utility poles again, those kinds of expenses that have been incurred for public infrastructure," Daugaard says.
The governor says individual assistance is unusual, but he plans to ask federal authorities to consider granting relief money to people impacted by last week’s severe weather.
"Because this tornado is part of a weather system that moved from west to east, flooding in the northwest where one woman was washed off the road and I don’t think her body’s been found yet but we believe she has been lost. Then it moved through the central part of the state and then moved still eastward, and that weather pattern has created a lot of the flooding that’s occurred in the east as well. Our hope is to make the case to FEMA that this was all one disaster," Daugaard says.
If FEMA agrees, the agency could dedicate federal dollars to homeowners impacted by the tornado and flooding across South Dakota.
Red Cross donations and private dollars are helping Wessington Springs residents with immediate needs. Mayor Melissa Mebius says the city is overwhelmed by the household goods and toys people have donated, but they don’t need any more right now.
"Some of the tangibles are great, and we appreciate everything that people have been donating. Sometimes it’s just difficult, because a lot of these people don’t have homes to put them in right now," Mebius says.
Mebius says people willing to donate money can use the Wessington Springs Relief Fund at local American Bank & Trust locations. She says those dollars go directly to people affected by the tornado through a community committee filling unmet needs.
Governor Dennis Daugaard says multiple state and local agencies are at a resource center in Wessington Springs to help people navigate their options for rebuilding. Those include opportunities for people with low income to purchase Governor’s houses.