Is the county prepared for the next natural disaster? That is a question that was presented to County Emergency Management Director Denny Evans during Monday’s Sunflower County Board of Supervisors’ meeting.
District 5 Supervisor Gloria Dickerson asked if the county was prepared in the event of possible future power outages from a strong storm and Evans said, “It depends,” explaining that there are variables to consider, including what area is affected and what items are without power.
He said that if an outage was to hit the whole county, then they are not ready yet. The question was fueled by Evans’ announcement that the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency is preparing to open up their hazard mitigation grants. He explained that the grants are issued anytime there is a federally declared disaster in the state.
Evans said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency usually administers the grant through MEMA within six to nine months after a disaster has been declared.
"These grants can be used to purchase items that will lessen the effect of a disaster. Things like tornado sirens, generators, the storm shelter we were talking about doing and those types of projects," said Evans.
The grant revelation also prompted a discussion about the size and number of generators the county now has in its possession in case of emergency and if more were needed.
Evans asked if he should file a notice of intent for additional generators and stated that the trailer-mounted unit that he has would now cost about $100,000.
Evan said having two of the large trailer-mounted generators would be a good start to get where they need to be.
Dickerson asked if there was a limit on the grants and what can be requested. "The thing is if you ask for too high of a dollar amount, you may not get funded because they may not have the money," Evan said.
Dickerson disclosed that she has also contacted Congressman Bennie Thompson about getting generators, but he needed some specific details about the size and types. One of her major concerns was the municipalities that may need generators for water wells and such in the event of a power outage. Several cities have generators for their wells, but some do not.
Evans said that the municipalities are able to apply for their own grants and that it would require a 75-25 match and it has to be paid for up front and then they will be reimbursed.
He also said that the county’s notice of intent to build a storm shelter has already been submitted to FEMA and then he explained the process. He said that once all of the notices of intent from the states are received, then FEMA will decide what they can and cannot fund.
After the discussion about what could possibly be needed by the cities, Donald suggested holding a work session so that each supervisor could bring back what they feel will be needed for their district. A work session is scheduled for March 22 at 10:00 a.m.
In other matters,
Grant money that can be used to repair some roads and streets within Sunflower County has been idling and could have run out if Dickerson had not asked for an update on a $2 million grant that was supposed to be coming to the county.
Evans told her, "I have advised T.J. (Fairley), last summer that they approved it, that the money was there, that he could start his road work and now it's a reimbursable grant also.”
Dickerson mentioned several things that could have been done with the money if she had known that it was available; however, Evans informed her that the money can only be used on the roads that were specified in the grant request because the funds were awarded as a result of the flooding in 2019.
Evan said the county has to spend the money, do the work and then get reimbursed for it. He stated that he has actually had to apply for an extension until October 2021 because the money has not been used so far. "I have not received any invoices or anything that shows the work has been done," Evans said.
Dickerson said, "We've got $2 million out there for roads that we applied for money for that we haven't tapped into yet, see those are the kind of things we need to be discussing in these meetings,"
She said a list of the affected roads were supplied with the grant request and now she is asking for a copy of that list so that she can see which roads should be worked on. Dickerson said that if she had known, she would have made sure her roads had gotten fixed.
Seemingly in defense of the road manager, District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald said that they didn't fix the roads because they didn't have the money. Alluding to an earlier mention of budgeting issues in the road department, he reminded Dickerson that the county would have had to come up with the $2 million from the road department coffers and then wait for it to be reimbursed.
"The man made his December report and whether you were listening or paying attention or not that's up on you. Now, we should have acted up on it when he did it. When he made that report we didn't have $2 million to go start fixing a road and get reimbursed on," Donald said.
He suggested that they now do a short-term loan and then pay that back when the reimbursement comes in. No further action was taken.
Also, the county's two drones that were ordered to assist with search and rescue efforts and other needs have arrived and are being added to the county’s inventory list so they can be assigned to the pilots.
Evans also made the county leaders aware of items that he received from FEMA, including a thermal scanner for the courthouse lobby, radios and computer equipment that also needs to be placed on the county’s inventory list.
