Houston County Engineer Gets Down and Dirty with FEMA

Houston County Engineer and his Houston County Road and Bridge Department have been working tirelessly since the late March floods repairing Houston County roads. Many were "blown" out and needed to be filled back in and repaved or regraded.. Most of the work is complete, but obtaining reimbursement from FEMA is proving to be problematic for Pool.

Pool said that there is a $395,000 difference in what he says repairs cost his department versus what FEMA says it will pay. A large portion of this is in dirt used to fill in washed out roads. Pool said today at a County Commission meeting that it takes 1.4 times the amount in loose dirt to replace dirt lost in the blown road. The defect is first filled back with loose dirt (what FEMA is willing to pay for), and then the filled in area is packed (tamped down). According to Pool, an industry standard and something that anyone in the business of building and repairing roads knows, and is documented in the RS Means manual, it takes another 40% of loose dirt to bring the repair to the proper level. And this, says Pool, FEMA is unwilling to reimburse the county for. And this dirt does not come cheap: the 40% not reimbursed comes to $110,000.

Pool said the reason why FEMA will not pay for the extra dirt is because FEMA inspectors sent down don't know what they are doing and have no training in road repairs.

To prove his point, Pool put on a demonstration. He took a cylinder of packed dirt from samples on a county road, emptied in a tub and broke it apart. The sample was now loose dirt. He then refilled the cylinder, and then continued to add what loose dirt that was remaining to a second cylinder, almost filling it up.

Commission Chairman Mark Culver wanted to know what the next step would be. Pool said that he would take the "political route" to get FEMA to take action. After that, he said, the legal route would be taken.Culver said that the county was not seeking anything beyond what it was due, but did want fair compensation. Culver said that the county did not want to go the legal route and expressed a willingness to continue working with FEMA.

FLASH: Late this afternoon, it was learned that the State EMA, which had been acting as a go between between the county and FEMA, informed Pool that a new FEMA representative would be in Houston County in the next two weeks to iron out differences and hopefully come to an equitable conclusion.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Houston County
• Road and Bridge
• Mark Pool
• Mark Culver
• FEMA
• Alabama EMA