Burrows’ declaration could lead to additional aid to county residents, business owners and farmers dealing with losses from flooding.
Such a request goes up the line and the governor’s office could request a presidential disaster declaration, Burrows said.
“Because of the scope of the event, we’re looking at a possible presidential disaster declaration,” Bell County Emergency Management Director Dennis Baker said.
Floodwaters tore through Salado Tuesday night damaging 25 houses and four businesses. In May, a tornado damaged 96 houses and flooding claimed four lives and damaged 40 houses in Killeen.
Currently, residents are eligible for Small Business Administration low-interest loans from the May flooding.
“If there’s a presidential declaration, then funding will be available to get you back to where you were before the event,” Baker said. “With 17-odd counties there’s a real strong possibility of a presidential declaration because of the economic and property loss.”
During an emergency meeting of the Bell County Commissioners Court Thursday afternoon, about 40 area officials met to discuss what has happened and what could happen in the next few days, as well as the damage sustained.
Dirk Aaron with the Texas Cooperative Extension office said when the rain began the wheat and oat crops were ready to be harvested. Those crops remain in the fields.
“We have 15,000 acres out in the field,” he said. “For all practical purposes you can call that a 100 percent loss.”
Corn crops also have taken hits with the recent rains, he said. Those damages combined with high corn and wheat prices make it doubly devastating for farmers.
“We were finally having a good crop opportunity,” he said. “You have to take that out of the economy.”
County Engineer Richard Macchi said the county spent about $90,000 repairing damage to the roads from May.
“We thought we had a lot of the damage repaired,” he said. “Now we’re back to where we were … We’ll be spending a lot of money on a lot of repairs for a long time.”
Even as residents attempt to recover from flooding, more rain is expected to fall, which could cause further flooding.
“Today’s forecast is 5 inches of rain. We got three-quarters of an inch just before the meeting started,” Baker said. “The weather pattern should hold through this weekend.”
More rainfall on saturated ground could bring more flooding, officials warned.
“The rain’s coming down, the creeks are right at the top of the banks,” Killeen Emergency Management Director Chad Berg said. “Any more rain and we’ll be evacuating again.”
Macchi urged residents to turn around at high water and not attempt to drive through it. He said almost all of the county’s barricades and signs were out at flooded roads and low-water crossings.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Richard Cortese said while the flooding seems bad it has happened before.
“We’ve got to realize we’re going to continue to have problems in Central Texas with weather being either too dry or too wet,” he said.
jsicking@temple-telegram.com
