OXFORD, Conn. — It’s been just over a week since a historic storm washed entire homes and roads away in the southwestern part of the state. Now, teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) are here, assessing the damage.
“We’ll be here on the ground until the job is done,” said David Mace, a spokesperson for FEMA Region 1 in Boston.
Crews arrived in Oxford on Wednesday and will make their way through other parts of New Haven, Litchfield, and Fairfield counties through the end of this week. They are taking pictures, speaking with homeowners, and documenting the damage to personal property.
“The standard that is used in statute is if the disaster damage is beyond the capability of state and local governments to respond to,” Mace said.
As for how they know where to go, they’re going off of reports from the community.
“Going out and surveying all the damage that residents had already self-reported to validate those damages and confirm if we meet certain thresholds for a potential major disaster declaration,” said William Turner, State Emergency Management Director for Connecticut.
This week’s assessment is all about homes and businesses. Next week, more federal teams will be coming to take a look at public property and roads and bridges.
“I’m happy to see that they’re here. You know it really makes us feel seen at that point. I mean we’re all going through this together,” said Arthur Powell of Oxford, whose Oxford Rd. home is now unlivable after Sunday’s storm.
FEMA and SBA team paid a surprise visit to Powell’s home Wednesday afternoon.
“We lost a furnace, a hot water heater, washer, dryer, freezer full of meat,” Powell said.
Like most others in Oxford, Powell didn’t have flood insurance and will take any help he can get.
“It’s, it’s absolutely devastating,” Powell said.
Amongst the crowd of assessors, the SBA is looking into who qualifies for low-interest loans to help homeowners rebuild or keep businesses afloat until more help comes through.
“For the physical side for SBA, we just have to demonstrate 25 homes or businesses that had greater than 40% uninsured losses. On the economic side, we just have to show five businesses that have suffered economic loss,” Turner said.
Turner said more than 200 businesses and 2,000 homeowners have already self-reported damages or impacts. He encourages people to continue to self-report so that FEMA can help.
“Document everything. Don’t wait to clean up. Take pictures of the damage as it exists in your home and then clean it up,” Mace said.
Also on Wednesday, more federal eyes were on the flooding in Oxford. Further down the road, U.S. senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy were visiting the hardest-hit areas. The two will bring those reports back to Washington.
“We have two jobs. Our first job is to make sure we qualify for as much disaster assistance as possible and get it here as quickly as possible. Our second job is to convince our colleagues that we have to put new resources into the disaster fund next month,” Sen. Murphy said.
Murphy and Blumenthal explained that with more natural disasters happening more often, the FEMA funds will need to be replenished.
“The FEMA disaster fund is very close to running empty right now. One of the big challenges that we will have this fall in Congress is that we need to replenish the FEMA disaster fund,” Sen. Murphy said.
As for the damage assessments in southwestern Connecticut, FEMA and the SBA will continue to visit homes and businesses through the end of this week.
Next week, more teams will go out to analyze damage to public buildings, roads, and bridges. When all is said and done, the state plans to use that information to submit its major disaster declaration to the white house, which will then make its determination. Turner said he hopes to submit that application by early next week.
Julia LeBlanc is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jleblanc@fox61.com Follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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