Bluefield Daily Telegraph
— To say that Mercer County, and the city of Bluefield in particular, didn’t receive enough snow to be included in a federal disaster declaration seems a little questionable.
To base this decision upon a single snowfall event — the Dec. 18, 2009, monster storm — is largely unfair to Mercer County. That’s not to say that we didn’t receive enough snow on Dec. 18, 2009. Mercer County reported 17 inches of wet, heavy snow, during the 24-hour period that crippled our region. The city of Bluefield also set a new single day, snowfall record with 13.3 of snow. That’s a lot of snow for a two-day period.
For those who are keeping track, we also broke the all-time modern day snowfall record of 77.8 inches for a single season in Bluefield. The last time we checked with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg, Va., the new all-time seasonal snowfall record for Bluefield stood at well over 80 inches.
Bluefield also set a new snowfall record for the month of February. Bluefield’s 32.7 inches of snow broke the previous February record of 31 inches of snow in 1960.
Make no mistake, we are coming off of a nightmarish winter for the record books — one like our region hasn’t seen in ages. These numbers, and the new records, speak for themselves.
That’s why it seems more than a little odd for the state to tell us that we didn’t receive enough snowfall to qualify for a federal disaster declaration.
According to local officials, McDowell County reported 19 and 1/2 inches of wet, heavy snow following the Dec. 18 storm. That’s two more inches than Mercer County. McDowell was included in the federal disaster declaration. Mercer wasn’t. Why should two inches of snow be the difference between receiving and not receiving a federal disaster declaration?
A second criteria used by officials in determining a disaster declaration is the per capita threshold of dollar damage. This relates to the cost experienced by certain government agencies and nonprofit groups that provided services such as shelter.
Information on the costs incurred during a snow event is provided to state Homeland Security through agencies such as the Department of Highways and the West Virginia National Guard. Individual towns can also submit information. However, no towns in Mercer County submitted estimated costs, according to state Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Jimmy Joe Gianato.
That’s unfortunate. We would urge our towns and cities to be more proactive in the future when it comes to assessing damage from storms and other related disasters.
Mercer County is hoping to be considered a “contiguous” area with neighboring counties included in the disaster declaration, according to county Emergency Services Director Tim Farley. For this to occur, Mercer County’s two-day total of snow would have to be close to that in counties such as Raleigh County.
Gianato added there is still a possibility that Mercer County could be part of a pending disaster declaration for snow storms that struck in February. We certainly think it should, and could not imagine why Mercer County wouldn’t be included in a second disaster declaration based upon the February storms.
We urge county officials, and all of the towns and cities, to get their damage estimates completed and submitted to appropriate agencies.
We must be proactive. We can’t assume officials in Charleston, and Washington, know we were buried under snow the past three months.
