COLUMBIANA COUNTY Leetonia to seek FEMA assistance

Replacing equipment at the sewage treatment plant is the most expensive repair.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LEETONIA -- Village officials are seeking reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for about $55,000 in damages caused by summer flooding.
Replacing equipment at the sewage plant accounts for about $30,000 of that total. The rest is for miscellaneous repairs to ditches, replacing culverts and paying for employee overtime and use of fire equipment.
Village Clerk Judy Garlough has been filling out all the required FEMA paperwork. She is also the wife of Fire Chief Ken Garlough.
She said one of the expenses turned in by firefighters is to replace a rope used by the fire department for rappelling rescues. Firefighters used their boat and the rope to rescue a woman stranded in her car in floodwaters.
The rappelling rope, worth about $300, got wet, so it's no longer considered safe to be used for rappelling.
Village Manager Gary Phillips said the paperwork for all the projects has been submitted to FEMA.
Status of repairs
He said repairs are about 90 percent complete. Most of the remaining work is repairing catch basins and erosion damage on Oak and Vine streets.
FEMA officials have said the area received 3 to 5 inches of rain in a two-hour period Aug. 9.
Phillips said street crews and treatment plant workers have been making repairs as time and weather permits.
The street department workers will be busy with leaf and brush pickup for about six weeks, he said. Repair to ditches and culverts has been slow because of the recent rains.
Besides repairing damage from the summer flooding, village employees also have to maintain the flood plains of the Cherry Valley Run and east fork of the Little Beaver Creek. Both creeks flow through the village.
Phillips said maintaining the standards for the creeks and the flood plains as set by the Army Corps of Engineers is a stipulation of the village qualifying for federal and state funding such as the FEMA reimbursement they are now seeking.
The Army Corps of Engineers inspects the creeks and the flood plains about every two years to see if the village is fulfilling its obligation, he said.
Keeping the creeks free of debris such as fallen trees and keeping the creek banks mowed are among the village's responsibilities, he said.
tullis@vindy.com