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State EMA Director Tours Tornado Damage, Looking For State Aid

Concern over tornado recovery efforts in Century continued to mount Wednesday as residents learned that the area likely won’t qualify for FEMA assistance. But one state department leader says his agency will work to find any available state dollars to assist.

Gov. Rick Scott visited with Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan in Pensacola for a briefing on the EF-3 tornado and recovery efforts, but Scott did not visit Century. Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management Bryan Koon did visit Century — first attending a briefing with Escambia County and Century leaders at the Century Fire Station.

NorthEscambia.com was along with County Administrator Jack Brown and Dosh as Koon was driven around the damaged areas in Century for about 25 minutes, but he never got out of the truck or talked with any of the tornado victims.

“I talked to the folks with the city commission and the county commission, some of the emergency managers. I’ve talked to some of the volunteer organizations involved with that and I think that gave me a pretty good idea of what the situation looks like on the ground,” he said. “”We got a good idea of just how badly the storm impacted the community,” he said. “I saw a real sense of community here in Century. I was pleased about that and their effort to get back up on their feet as quickly as possible.”

“I’ll take the data and what I have seen today back to Tallahassee and start working with the other state agencies that are involved in this sort of thing,” he said. “We’ll start looking at what are  the types of assistance that may be available. in these kinds of situations. It’s might be through the Small Business Administration, it might be through the Florida Housing Finance Cooperation, it might be through Volunteer Florida. There’s a lot of stuff going on here through Escambia County, BRACE and other organizations. So we are going to go back and piece together all of the different opportunities that may be available to the citizens to help them recover.’

But it may be weeks before Century sees any funding the state might find.

“It’s not as fast as possible, unfortunately. The best case scenario is that you’ve got insurance, and your insurance agent comes out here and writes you a check,” Koon said. “But I know for many of these citizens that don’t have insurance the recovery process can take a little while for the governmental processes to understand what is going on and spin up. So it could be a couple of weeks before they would see any of the assistance..”

Of the 110 homes that impacted by the storm, most were probably not covered by insurance, according to Brown.

Escambia County Emergency Management Director John Dosh said a federal disaster declaration from the White House would require documented losses of over $25 million in the county. He said it is extremely unlikely for the tornado damage to totals to be anywhere near $25 million.  Without the federal disaster declaration, FEMA funds will not be released.

“Our hearts go out to anybody that was impacted by this storm; we are going to go back and see everything we can to help them get back up on their feet,” Koon said. “This is one of those situation where we really want to do everything we can to get the community back up because it looks like a strong community, and old community that’s been here a long time. A very close-knit community judging by what I saw out there today…we will work with every agency we can and find out how we can bring assistance.”

Pictured top: Escambia County Administrator Jack Brown (left) discusses tornado recovery with Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management Bryan Koon Wednesday afternoon in Century. Pictured below: (L-R) Escambia County Commissioner Steven Barry, Florida Department of Economic Development Director Cissy Proctor, Century Council President Ben Boutwell and  Florida Division of Emergency Management Bryan Koon Wednesday afternoon at the Century Fire Station, which was being used as a command center. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.