In last month's article, I informed members about the ice storm that plagued much of Southern Illinois on January 27th thru the 29th which caused outages to approximately 9,500 members.  As mentioned in my article, in the past twelve months your Cooperative has been hit by the two most damaging ice storms in our 70 year history.  At the conclusion of the storm, your Cooperative has determined that the approximate cost of the January ice storm damage and restoration efforts totaled $3.5 million.  This article describes the efforts to obtain financial assistance thru state and federal agencies to help pay for the damage associated with the storm.

In order to qualify for financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the damages from an ice storm in 2009 must total $1.31 per capita of the state.   Given that Illinois contains the third largest city in the United States and the FEMA assistance is based upon per capita numbers, storm totals in Illinois need to total approximately $16.3 million in order to qualify for assistance while surrounding states have a much lower requirement.

As many of you may recall, the Cooperative's of Southern Illinois did not receive any financial assistance from FEMA last year for the February 2008 ice storm due to the fact that this ice storm primarily hit the most southern and southeastern areas of Illinois and the damage totals did not meet the required per-capita totals.

The most recent January storm is similar in that the damage occurred in the most southern and southeastern areas of Illinois however the damage was more severe this year.  At the conclusion of the storm restoration efforts, your Cooperative along with two other Illinois Cooperatives began working with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) and local legislators in an attempt to encourage the Governor of Illinois to request FEMA assistance for this ice storm.  The Governor did in fact declare a State of Emergency in Illinois and then submitted a request to FEMA for financial assistance.  The Southern Illinois Cooperatives then worked with Illinois Congressmen in an attempt to get the FEMA declaration approved at the federal level.

I am pleased to inform you that on March 2nd, 2009, nine Southern Illinois counties were declared disaster areas making federal disaster aid available for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the January 2009 ice storm. Your Cooperative will be working with FEMA representatives over the next several months and may receive up to 75% of the total cost associated with the storm through financial assistance from FEMA.  Although your Cooperative will still incur approximately $900,000 in storm damages that will not be reimbursed, the costs incurred without the FEMA assistance would have been approximately $3.5 million.

At this time, I would like to thank all of the local State Representatives and Senators for their assistance in obtaining the Illinois declaration.  In addition, I would like to thank all of our Illinois Congressman for their assistance in obtaining the FEMA declaration at the federal level.