FEMA helps Nebraska after devastating flooding
On Thursday afternoon President Trump signed a disaster declaration for Nebraska.
Now FEMA is stepping in to help with about 40 employees in the state.
“First file their insurance claim. Either flood insurance or home owners, and then go ahead and register for assistance with FEMA,” Mike Cappannari, FEMA external affairs director, said.
Cappannari urges you to first contact your insurance company, and keep track of all of the damage.
When you’ve done that, you can fill out information on disasterassistance.gov or call 800-621-3362.
“Based upon the unique aspects of the damages to that household, we’ll come out with an inspector, take a look and then based upon the damages, assistance will be determined,” Cappannari said.
After you’ve registered with FEMA, it will take about ten days to have an inspection scheduled for somebody to look at the property.
“In the coming weeks, folks are going to be seeing disaster survivor assistance teams, and those are teams of disaster experts that are going to be going to some of the hardest hit communities at the direction of state and local government and just meeting directly with disaster survivors,” Cappannari said.
Keep in mind, much of the assistance from the Federal Government will come in the form of a low interest disaster loan for individuals from the Small Business Administration.
Within the next few weeks FEMA will also continue to validate the damages and meet with local officials to look at the damage to public infrastructure
They will also look into all of the donations that have been pouring into Nebraska to decide where they should be dispersed.
“We work really closely with the state when it comes to voluntary agencies support and you know we really tend to defer to the state of Nebraska in terms of how to get those donations out and how to manage those,” Cappannari said.
When FEMA employees are in your town, they’ll be wearing badges and FEMA shirts to identify them.
http://www.nebraska.gov/nebraska-strong/
