SPOKANE, Wash. – Close to two months after federal aid was approved by President Biden for Spokane County residents affected by the Gray and Oregon Road fires, FEMA says around $2.4 million has been dispersed to fire survivors so far.
“Here’s a community already starting to stand back up on its feet,” said FEMA Coordinating Officer Lance “Duke” Davis.
Davis said, as of Wednesday, 518 people have registered for federal disaster relief between the Medical Lake and Elk Disaster Recovery Centers (DRCs).
“We had a gentleman yesterday that got $11,000 to pay to repair his well,” Davis said. “Last Friday, we were informed that a gentleman got $12,800 to repair a well up in the Elk community.”
In fact, Davis said there have been 400 visits to the Medical Lake location at Medical Lake City Hall alone.
“What we’re finding is people are registered at this stage, and they’re coming back in and doing second and third visits to get their questions answered and bring in their documentation to put in their case file, and help us help them get to ‘yes,’ or getting approved,” Davis said.
Davis said they’ve found a lot of the people visiting the centers have been insured: 55% have had homeowners insurance, 65% have had personal property insurance.
“A lot of our survivors are bringing in their insurance policies, and we’re finding opportunities to help them with septic, wells, HVAC, private drives, retaining walls, some assistance on things that aren’t typically covered by your homeowners policy,” Davis said.
Representatives from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) are also at each Disaster Recovery Center, and Davis said they play a key role in the federal aid process because FEMA can only award up to $85,000 in individual assistance per survivor.
“That’s not going to bring somebody back to whole,” Davis said. “The Small Business Administration is really your path to get back to whole. They can offer loans up to $500,000 at very reduced rates on the homeowners side, as well as upwards of $50,000 and $100,000 to help out on the personal property side.”
One of the biggest challenges for both agencies though has been people not following up with the process once they’ve registered.
“It’s important to stay assertive,” Davis said. “These folks have been through a lot of processes, and we’ve brought in another process. We need that documentation to verify requirements, to help them with payouts and meet some of their needs.”
All of these processes and forms can be extremely confusing for survivors who have already gone through so much.
“A lot of the folks working at these DRCs and across FEMA are actually survivors themselves,” Davis said. “We’ve got a lot of folks from Texas, a lot of folks from Puerto Rico, a lot of folks who were involved in some very large disasters themselves. These people understand empathy and sympathy for what these folks have been going through.”
The deadline to register for federal aid is April 20, and for anyone who might still be apprehensive about registering, Davis gives this anecdote:
“Let’s say you’re rebuilding your house, and you’ve got a septic that was pre-disaster that got damaged and you don’t even know about it,” Davis said. “When you’re getting ready to hook up that septic to your new home and discover there’s damage to it, if you come in 13 months from now, we can still help you if you’ve got a registration number. If you don’t [have a registration number], unfortunately we’re not going to be able to provide assistance at that point.”
When the Disaster Recovery Centers close their physical locations in Medical Lake and Elk on April 20, Davis stresses FEMA isn’t going anywhere.
“The method at that point will be to call the FEMA hotline, pick up that dialogue, turn in those documents and follow those instructions that they may give you, as to how to help your personal case to get to ‘yes,'” Davis said.
For more information on the federal aid application process and FEMA’s Disaster Recovery Centers, click here.
