Gov. Janet Mills is asking for federal assistance to help Oxford and Franklin counties recover from damage caused by two severe rainstorms in June.
Mills wrote letters to President Joe Biden this week asking for major disaster declarations for the two counties. On June 26, a storm caused more than $2.6 million in damage to roads, bridges and other infrastructure in Oxford County. More than a dozen residents along a town road were stranded after a bridge to their neighborhood washed out.
“While there are no reports of loss of work for disaster survivors as a result of the flash flood, the extent of isolated damage associated with this event has placed an extraordinary financial burden on the Towns of Byron and Andover,” Mills wrote to Biden and Lori Ehrlich, the regional administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “With only 752 residents residing in Andover, the damage dollar per capita breakdown results in $2,789 per person. With only 103 residents residing in Byron, that damage dollar per capita breakdown results in a staggering $5,123 per person.”
Three days after that storm hit Oxford County hard, up to five inches of rain fell on areas of Franklin County over the course of several hours. The storm caused flash flooding that washed out roads and resulted in an estimated $6.5 million in damage to infrastructure.
“With the increased frequency and intensity of storm events in Maine over the last 24 months, emergency management officials across all levels of government have been stretched in their fiscal and programmatic capacity to respond to and recover from disasters,” Mills wrote.
A disaster declaration allows state, local and tribal governments to qualify for federal grants to cover repair costs and to take steps to mitigate damage from future storms.
