Tuolumne County Added To FEMA Winter Storms Disaster Declaration

Tuolumne County OES photo

Sonora, CA – Tuolumne County has been added to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) emergency declaration due to damage from recent winter storms.

The amendment to the declaration adding the county was issued on Thursday and can be viewed here. Now the county can get federal funding for the more than $18 million in damages to infrastructure caused by several “atmospheric rivers” that brought heavy rain and flooding, to the county in December and January.

As earlier reported, FEMA officials visited the county at the beginning of this month to document the storm’s destruction and to determine if the county met the public threshold to be included in the federal disaster declaration. County agencies reporting impacts on infrastructure include the county, TUD, Twain Harte Community Services District, and Groveland Community Services District, among others.

County OES Coordinator Dore Bietz notes that this declaration does not include money for damage to individual citizens’ properties. She explains, “We have to have 25 homes with 40% or more damage to each of those homes. So, it is not accumulative. On the public side, it is accumulative in terms of how many public agencies have had damage that gets this over this threshold.” Bietz continued, “We haven’t met the threshold to request individual assistance in the county. And unlike Calaveras, which had 80 homes completely destroyed because of flooding, they met that request.”

Calaveras was awarded individual assistance from FEMA last month, with the county reporting around $3 million in losses. One of the hardest hit areas was the Castle Rock Mobile Home Park near lower Lime Creek Road in Valley Springs, where residents were evacuated from their homes. Residents with storm damage are eligible for things like community disaster loans, crisis counseling, disaster legal services, disaster unemployment assistance, fire management assistance grants, and disaster housing assistance, as previously detailed here.

To view the entire FEMA Major Disaster Declaration, click here.