Over half a dozen counties in our viewing area will now receive federal assistance after being declared disaster areas by president trump.

The declaration comes after storms produced tornadoes and flooding that impacted thousands in february.

Our quentin smith speaks with one of the counties that's getting that help.

Scott, in clay county.....nearly 100 homes and businesses..

Plus roads were damaged due to flooding.... the cleanup afterwards was putting a strain on their budget... now that a declaration has been issued..... county leaders are thankful.... because now more work can be done.... flooded homes like this one and crews going inside to clean up damage was a common site in clay county when floodwaters raged through a few months ago.

The cost to pay for repairing the damage was likely to cause problems in the county's budget.

That's why emergency management agency director torrey williams says getting the federal assistance is a big relief.

" the damage that was done was not budgeted for the year so that's money that you have to dip into to fix the problems that's going on, so having that extra boost to fix those problems without having to go in any other funds or cutting funds from other places, it'll be able to make your money stretch a little further."

The areas who will be receiving federal assistance include calhoun., chickasaw, clay, grenada, lowndes, pontotoc, and tishomingo county's.

The federal assistance allows governments and certain nonprofit groups to be eligible to be repaid for a portion they pay in fixing infrastructure damage, debris removal, and overtime pay to emergency workers.

"we turn in receipts, turning in payroll, tony and things of that nature to them, but the items that we have not done yet like a major bridge repair, or major culvert repair, things like that, they will bring a team in and we will go back through those things and kind of tally up how much it's going to cost.

Then they will decide by a cost code on how much will actually be reimbursable."

Right now the declaration does not grant federal assistance for individuals.

" the individual assessments or the individual assistance part is still under review, they have not denied that, so if they say no news is good news right now.

We're still pushing to try to get them that assistance."

Take vo in monitor mema executive director greg michel says they've asked fema to add 13 other counties after recent storms. first