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Disaster recovery center to open Monday at CCAC
FEMA offers up to:
How much money a person is eligible for depends on what was damaged and how much money he or she makes, according to FEMA.
Mike Wereschagin can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7900.
Representatives from every major state and county department, as well as Federal Emergency Management Agency workers and others, will be available to answer questions and sign people up for every assistance program available to them, said Philip Barker, an emergency management specialist from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. Three other centers, in Beaver, Washington and a county to be determined, will open about a week after Allegheny County's center opens.
The county will, sometime this weekend, release details of exactly where the center will be at the CCAC main campus and when it will be open. On Tuesday, it will probably be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Barker said. Because it will be in operation for a while, Barker urged residents not to rush in on the first day.
"It's going to be very easy to get to ours," Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato said, promising easy parking and a free shuttle service. "We're going to make it easy."
Before going to the center, people should call FEMA's registration hotline at (800) 621-3362, Barker said.
The federal agency offers individual grants that can total $25,600 and personal loans up to $240,000 for homeowners, said Denise Worhach, a FEMA spokeswoman. How much each person gets depends on his or her income and how much damage he or she suffered, though the agency has "no hard and fast rules" on income limits, Worhach said.
Onorato said a FEMA representative told him most people will get between $5,000 and $15,000.
At his daily storm news conference yesterday, Onorato said Carnegie, Etna and Heidelberg have now reported the number of buildings damaged in those communities. Allegheny County's total now stands at 8,857 buildings damaged, with 62 percent of the county reporting.
Also yesterday, bail was set for a woman charged with looting after police said a home video appeared to show her taking toys as they floated out of a hobby shop in Millvale during last week's flooding.
Glenda Lee Ford, 42, of Millvale, was arrested Thursday on a charge of theft during a natural disaster -- a felony -- and disorderly conduct. She is being held at the Allegheny County Jail in lieu of $5,000 bail. She is accused of making off with toys valued at more than $100 -- including a 1953 Ford pickup model, valued at $13.50 and a tank model, valued at $26 -- from Esther's Hobby Shop on North Avenue, Millvale Police Chief Dan Girty said. The store is temporarily closed because of flooding.
In Ambridge, Beaver County, a husband and wife who were hired to clean a flood-ravaged Giant Eagle tried on Thursday to steal personal hygiene products from what was left of the muddy store, police said.
Cynthia Trimber, 48, and Robert Trimber, 52, of Beaver Road, were caught taking a box of baby wipes, four toothbrushes, bottles of mouthwash and 22 packs of cigarettes from the Green Garden Plaza store, said Hopewell Assistant Chief Gary Tranelli.
"A lot of the stuff is covered with debris, slime and sludge," he said. "And we have a sewage plant a quarter-mile away that flooded. It's not sanitary."
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