U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler this week took in a firsthand view of the damage inflicted by a record flood in the Route 66 town of Devil’s Elbow, Missouri.
To date, she is the only non-local politician to go to the town after the disaster.
She posted on her Facebook page later in the day:
As I spoke with residents who have lost so much, I was touched and inspired by their strength. I will continue to push FEMA to get more much-needed action to help rebuild the community.
They embody Missouri strength and deserve all the help we can give.
The Waynesville Daily Guide provided a good account of Hartzler’s visit. The event also reiterated some issues locals have brought up in recent days:
— The Federal Emergency Management Agency needs to get its act together. Pulaski County has encountered difficulties in being reimbursed for expenses related to other flood disasters in 2013 and 2015. As a result, the county is “strapped” and can offer little help to Devil’s Elbow.
Hartzler detailed the FEMA problems in an interview:
“Ever since the 2013 floods experienced by Pulaski County where it became very evident that FEMA was very inept in their ability to handle a disaster. They’ve asked the county officials multiple times for the same paperwork, they’ve lost the paperwork, they sent various recovery teams, each one was different from the one before and asked the local officials to explain and to show all over again and yet they’ve denied some of their requests and it’s now on appeal. This is just not acceptable. My bill forces FEMA to develop a new system,” Hartzler said.
Several Missouri politicians in addition to Hartzler have requested a federal-disaster declaration from the president. As of Tuesday afternoon, none had been declared.
— The Big Piney River needs to be dredged or cleaned. County officials have noted the Big Piney hasn’t been dredged in over 50 years. The lack of action has lessened the river’s water capacity over time and made it more susceptible to flooding.
Even if the river can’t be dredged for environmental or other reasons, officials noted the cleaning of debris or dredging in nearby tributaries probably kept Roubidoux Creek in nearby Waynesville from flooding as badly.
— Flood maps need to be redrawn. Several Devil’s Elbow residents owned homes that sat well above the historical flood area, and they were inundated anyway during last week’s disaster. As a result, those residents didn’t have flood insurance.
This week, Dries Bessels and other members of the Dutch Route 66 Association came to the Elbow Inn in Devil’s Elbow to deliver a donation to help the restaurant and bar recover from the flood.
The Elbow Inn continues to try to clean up from the damage. Here’s a crowdsourcing page to help the owners defray some of the costs:
(Images of U.S. Rep Vicky Hartzler touring Devil’s Elbow, Missouri, via her Facebook page)
Is it because of the large geographical size of the US that govt bodies such as FEMA are unable to focus on local events such as the Devil’s Elbow and previous floods in places most likely unheard of by most Washingtonians? That is where the Federal system breaks down. From an outsider’s viewpoint, many more govt operations in the US appear to need to be at State level, where officials at least know the locations of small towns and villages.
The clash between environmentalists and local needs – as in dredging river beds to prevent flooding – is very common. All sorts of reasons/excuses are brought up for “protecting endangered species”, as if they are always more important than humans. For some reason, in the UK bats are the No 1 endangered species. As if their absence would bring about the end of the world.