Swift County in disaster declaration

by Reed Anfinson, Editor
Swift, Pope and Stevens are among 26 Minnesota counties included in a disaster declaration issued by Gov. Mark Dayton last week.
His executive order is part of the process that allows the state to seek federal disaster assistance for damage caused by powerful storms between June 20 and June 26. Straight-line winds uprooted and snapped off trees with some falling on power lines throughout a wide swath of central Minnesota. There was also considerable flash flooding in southern Minnesota due to the June storms.
Under the order county, state, and FEMA teams started making damage assessments, Doug Neville at the Department of Public Safety said.
“That process of doing the damage assessment, because it’s so widespread, should take about three days for us to work our way across the state,” Neville said. When statewide damages go above $7.26 million the federal government will step in to help. State officials don’t expect it to be a problem hitting that number.
Anticipating the declaration, Swift County has submitted a report to the state estimating damage from two June 21 storms at $484,000.