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June 18, 2009

Cherokee County disaster-projects closer to fruition

By Kelly Young

kyoung@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Last year’s Hurricane Ike revealed a dangerous shortage of emergency power generators in Cherokee County, and when the county was awarded more than $3.3 million in federal disaster relief funds the commissioners set acquisition of new generators as the No. 1 hurricane-preparedness priority.

A total of 40 project applications were submitted — 39 of which were for new generators — by entities within the county. The East Texas Council of Governments announced Monday that 19 of the applicants had been selected for funding, which should go a long way toward powering Cherokee County if this year’s hurricane season again goes poorly for East Texas.

The funds are being distributed by the Office of Rural Community Affairs, but the method of distribution was set by ETCOG. Cherokee County received a total of $3,364,140 in federal money, with 60 percent of the funds going to cities in the county and the other 40 percent set aside for use by the county itself.

Each of the applicants was scored on a 270-point scale, with the ETCOG Regional Review Committee assigning 220 of the points and the counties allocating the remaining 50 points for themselves. ETCOG said its scoring criteria factors in poverty rate, per capita income and unemployment rate.

Ten of the 28 projects submitted by the county were chosen to receive funding, while nine of the 12 projects submitted by the cities were also approved. Two of Jacksonville’s three applications were chosen for funding, while Cuney, Alto and New Summerfield’s projects were also selected and neither of Rusk’s two were picked up.

Several of the county’s volunteer fire departments will benefit from the federal money, as the Earle’s Chapel, North Cherokee and Alto VFDs all gained a generator through this process — and North Cherokee gained two. Other county beneficiaries include the Precinct 4 barn, emergency shelters in Alto and Wells, and the Afton Grove, Blackjack and Forest water systems councils.

“We are happy with any amount of help that we can get, and we are tickled to death to get this much assistance. According to the grant these had to be stationary generators and in a lot of cases a portable one on a trailer might be more useful to us, but this will still help us out a lot,” said County Judge Chris Davis. “I’m praying we won’t have a bad hurricane season this year, but if we do, it will make a big difference if we can get some of these generators up and going before the hurricanes start coming.”

A total of $9.2 million in Ike relief funds was given to ORCA, and Cherokee County received the largest share (36 percent) because it also suffered the greatest damage.

Entities with projects nominated for funding are now responsible for sending applications directly to ORCA, which will then release the project monies. The application deadline is June 30. Extension requests will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

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