Union County encourages residents to fill out flood damage assessment

NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. (KCAU) – Union County residents are being encouraged to fill out the flood damage assessment provided by the South Dakota government in preparation for next week’s visit from FEMA representatives.

It is important to note that this is not a FEMA form but instead a form for information that will be given to FEMA to assess the damage. The lack of clarity has caused frustration among residents.

“I’ve been on the FEMA website several times,” resident David Oberg said. “It takes about 15 minutes to get to a certain point, and then they tell you it hasn’t been declared a disaster. I don’t know why they don’t do that on the front end, save everybody a bunch of time.”

Many residents in Union County are confused by the flood damage form they’re being told to fill out by officials, but most are frustrated by the lack of communication.

“You would think we get a little bit of direction from the county on what’s going on, where to be and how to do stuff other than this sd.gov thing, which we’ve already done,” Oberg said. “But you don’t get a confirmation that that they got the information. It just says it’s been submitted.”

Right now, all residents are looking for is a little bit of help.

“We’ll try and call on our commissioner who doesn’t call us back. It’s very frustrating,” resident Judy Oberg said. “We lost our home. We lost all our belongings. We’ve been married 51 years and we’ve been working since this flood happened. We’re tired. It’s just very frustrating to not get any help at all.”

The most upset are those that were told that they did not need flood coverage a few years ago.

“About two years ago, we received notification from FEMA that our property had been taken out of the floodplain,” resident Marty McGlothlen said. “We did question it and we actually sent the fee up to them and it came back, returned, because they said that we could not get flood insurance on the property since it was no longer in a floodplain. So two years ago, that was removed.”

As of now, all residents can do is fill out the assessment and hope FEMA will provide relief to those who need it.

“Right now, everything’s on me,” McGlothlen said. “I’ve lost several vehicles, I lost several trailers. I’ve lost all kinds of equipment and tools. I have no idea if I’m going to collect anything on that type of items other than some car insurance and some side-by-side utility insurance. I have no idea at this time.”

Residents have until July 12 to submit the assessment and are encouraged to print out the completed form or list of damaged items for future use. Residents can come to the North Sioux City Community Library for a working computer.

Click here to fill out the assessment online.

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