Just days after an EF-3 tornado ravaged St. Louis killing five people, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley made an in person visit on Monday. Hawley said there is a need for a lot of manpower to start cleaning up and rebuilding.
Thousands of homes, businesses, and other buildings are ruined or damaged by the twister that hit last Friday, resulting in an estimated $1.6 billion in damages. At the height of the storm, about 90,000 St. Louis area residents were without power.
Hawley responded to questions about why federal funding has not been approved for tornadoes that struck Missouri several months ago.
“We lost twelve people in those storms. We’ve lost seven here. The scope of the damage is immense. Seven lives it’s horrible to lose. And the additional scope of the damage is immense. We need FEMA to act very, very quickly. And that will be my message to the president.”
Hawley, the chair of a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Disaster Management, said his office has set up a Senate page and email for Missourians who want to report unpaid insurance claims.
“I have a message for insurance companies,” Hawley told reporters. “You need to pay out claims. We need 100% of claims that are eligible to be paid out and they need to be paid in full. They need to pay out claims to every person that has been injured, every person that has suffered damage and that is so many people.”
He said Gov. Mike Kehoe may need to consider enlisting the help of the Missouri National Guard.
“I will defer to him on that. It’s his decision as to whether or not to mobilize the (National) Guard. Just walking the streets here, there is a lot of need. There’s a lot of need and there’s a lot of severe weather in the forecast. And just simple things like getting tarps on their houses. You know a lot of folks I talk to they’re in their homes, but their homes don’t have roofs. They need tarps. They need help.”
Kehoe has requested that President Donald Trump issue a Federal Emergency Declaration, which would give Missouri $5 million in immediate funding.
He is also pursuing a Major Disaster Declaration to reimburse local governments for emergency storm response and aid for individual storm victims for severe weather dating back to mid March.
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