Kent seeks $280,000 in federal funds to cover storm costs

Kent city officials hope to get reimbursed for as much as $280,000 by the federal government for costs spent during the January snow and ice storms.

The city submitted a preliminary damage report last week to King County as one of the steps to eventually get funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The ice storm destroyed the large net at the city’s Riverbend Golf Complex driving range. It will cost the city more than $100,000 to replace the net, said Dominic Marzano, city emergency manager, who oversees the reimbursement request.

“The ice tore it down,” Marzano said about the net. “We also had a lot of overtime costs for people to keep the roads clear.”

As many as a dozen city crews with anywhere from 30 to 50 employees worked to clear streets of snow and branches and to clean up parks. The ice storm brought down tree branches all across town that landed on city streets.

“The ice part was more devastating than the snow,” said Tim LaPorte, city public works director, during a Tuesday phone interview. “This storm had all of the branches to clear up. That work is still ongoing.”

Employees from public works, parks and the police departments worked overtime hours during the January storm.

The city uses money out of the general fund or an emergency fund to cover the extra costs before possible reimbursement from the federal government, LaPorte said. He added the city typically spends about $50,000 to $100,000 per year in storm costs, so the snow and ice storms that struck this year sent costs much higher.

The city has eight trucks that can be converted to snowplows. With so little snow most winters, the city doesn’t own any vehicles manufactured just to  be snowplows.

“We have trucks that are used in the summer for asphalt overlay,” LaPorte said. “They are fitted with plows for snowstorms. We do not get enough snow to warrant specialized equipment.”

LaPorte said operations went quite smoothly to remove snow from the streets. Crews were able to keep South 277th Street open throughout the storm, giving drivers a good way to get up and down the East Hill.

When so many tree branches fell during the ice storm, many Kent streets were closed because the branches or trees also knocked down power lines. LaPorte said a big challenge turned out to be waiting for Puget Sound Energy crews to repair lines before city crews could clear the trees or branches.

“Our crews are forbidden to be near down power lines,” LaPorte said. “On 132nd Avenue Southeast, we had a lot of trees that knocked power lines down. Until PSE responded, we could not touch the trees.”

As far as the cost reimbursement steps, Marzano said King County could not even request federal funds until the storm costs exceeded $6 million. This storm cost more than $9 million throughout the county. Each jurisdiction in the county then must submit a report in order to get reimbursed. Federal and state employees are now reviewing those requests to make sure if they are allowable claims.

“The state and federal employees will talk to each jurisdiction that made a claim,” Marzano said. “That includes about 38 cities.”

The reimbursement process includes city requests to the county, county requests to the state and then the state request to FEMA.

Marzano said the city could know by the end of February how much it will get reimbursed.

There also must be a presidential declaration of a disaster before FEMA funds can be released. For example, a severe storm struck Utah Nov. 30-Dec. 1 and the presidential declaration came on Feb. 1.