Mansfield said, "it's a historic point - not one to be envied - that we have two disaster declarations simultaneously ongoing in the county with the tornado and the flooding that the Reidland area and Noble Road area have experienced in the last four or five weeks."
While he said damage from the tornado would not meet the threshold for federal disaster aid, Mansfield said work is ongoing to determine if a federal disaster can be declared due to flood damage.
Mansfield said teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management will visit the area Tuesday to assess damage in the southeastern and northwestern parts of the county.
He said FEMA and KDEM will also review costs incurred by the city and county for emergency protective measures.
While it's too early to tell if there was road damage because water has just receded, Mansfield said he knows the county incurred employee overtime and equipment costs, among others.
"The city and county had a joint sandbagging operation that produced over 23,000 sandbags, and of course, floodgate installation is very expensive for the city, so all of those costs might be covered by FEMA should we get a federal declaration by the president," Mansfield said.
After Tuesday's meeting the teams will go back to the KDEM to compile financial totals for damage in eastern and western Kentucky counties. Mansfield said they will ask the President for a disaster declaration if the damage totals reach $6 million or more.
Mansfield said, "Then it goes to FEMA, and FEMA prepares a study, and then they present that to the President with a recommendation. They told me they're looking at a declaration, if we're successful, around the beginning of May."
He said it's not possible to include tornado and flooding damage in the same report, since they are separate incidents.
As for the tornado, Mansfield reported these numbers to the Fiscal Court:
The EF-2 tornado covered 16 miles in Carlisle and McCracken Counties.
25 dwellings were damaged
5 businesses damaged
20 residences damaged
14 had minor damage
1 had major damage
5 were destroyed
Mt. Zion Baptist Church had 50 people inside, including 40 preschoolers, but none were injured.
1 minor injury to a driver whose pickup truck was overturned when a grain elevator blew into the road.
9,200 people lost power, but all electricity was restored by the next day.
Mansfield thanked people from every agency who cooperated and worked long hours in response to the storms. Commissioner Bill Bartleman echoed that sentiment.
