MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — As residents and business owners in Martinsburg recover from last week’s record flooding event, city leaders are urging residents to complete a disaster survey.
Officials said the survey takes about 5 minutes or less and applies to any resident whose home, business or property was damaged by the Aug. 27 event where more than 5 inches of rain fair in a section of the city in less than an hour.
“In order to get funding for this flooding effort from FEMA, we’ve got to get these surveys done,” Martinsburg Police Chief Erin Gibbons said Thursday on Panhandle Live adding the results depend on the total amount of damages. “Get online. If you need help with these surveys, you can go to City Hall. They will help you with these surveys, but they take about 5, 10 minutes. They’re very short.”
Martinsburg City Manager Andy Blake said it’s not easy to get federal disaster assistance.
“It’s an uphill battle to get federal individual assistance, but I think that we should give it the good old college try and we’re trying. This morning I think 127 surveys had been filled out,” Blake said Thursday. “We’re trying to get basically the threshold requirement from the state to say how many surveys do we really need to get filled out so they could bring an on-the-ground assessment team here.”
Blake said the damage threshold to be considered for assistance is approximately $650,000.
“I think the county itself, the Dunn Building, had pretty significant damages of a couple hundred thousand dollars,” he said. “Martinsburg High School, Winchester Avenue, Burke Street (elementary schools). So we’re really trying to reach out to some of the bigger places in order to get them to do their surveys, which they’re willing to do, in order to help individual folks try to get aid.”
Martinsburg Berkeley County Parks and Rec’s Melissa Gibbons talked about damage Thursday to War Memorial Park.
“One of the biggest impacts we had were a bunch of very large, very old trees down at War Memorial Park the day before we had our rescheduled Martinsburg Sprint Triathlon,” she said. “Luckily, our maintenance crew jumped in, got that cleaned up.”
The City of Martinsburg is waiving permit fees for about 30 days to help with the recovery.
Blake said some members of the public have raised questions about Martinsburg’s storm water fees and its MS4 designation.
“If we want to have a public policy debate about the scope of the permit and whether or not we should have their permit, then let’s do it,” he said, adding, “I have my own problems with the permit. I have made this very clear to the EPA and the DEP.”
He broke down storm water mandates from the federal government. He said the fees are collected so the city can comply with federal mandates.
Blake said the EPA/DEP requirements amount to an unfunded liability. “I think at some point, I think it’s unfair, it’s arbitrary, it’s capricious. And I think we all can agree, and I agree that water quality and water is essential to life. I am 100% about clean water, but water doesn’t stop at abstract political borders.”