LG Flood Cleanup Spurs $300,000 City Budget Amendment

At a La Grange City Council meeting on Monday, Sept. 25, City manager Shawn Raborn said the City has incurred $183,201 in expenses related to the flood so far. He estimated the City will incur another $100,000 before the fiscal year ends next month. 

The City Council approved a $300,000 amendment to the current budget to pay for the Hurricane Harvey-related expenses.

Raborn said the $300,000 amendment did not include worker overtime costs, which amounted to about $35,000 during the flood, mostly from electrical crews and police officers who worked during the flood.

The money will come from the City’s capital improvement fund, which has a current balance of $5,380,395.

Most of the expenses, about $125,000, were incurred by the water department. Water inundated four of the city’s water wells. Raborn said two are back online with another expected to come online at the end of this week. About $50,000 in well electronics had to be replaced, Raborn said.

Solid waste department incurred about $100,000 in storm-related expenses, mostly from debris removal. The sewer department incurred about $50,000 in expenses following in the flood. The electric department fared the best, with only $25,000 in expenses.

Raborn said he will seek reimbursement from FEMA to cover the expenses. U.S. Congress approved $7.4 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund on Sept. 8. However, as the Houston Chronicle reported in December 2015, more than $1 billion of the $3 billion Congress appropriated for Hurricane Ike recovery efforts in 2006 remained unspent seven years later.

“Based on recent history, we may not see reimbursement from FEMA for a long time,” said Councilman Ken Taylor at Monday’s meeting.

The $300,000 appropriated by the City on Monday will only be used for City expenses. Flood victims in La Grange have incurred millions of dollars in damages to their private property, and many of them are facing even more expenses related to debris removal.

City Council also passed an ordinance Monday night that will allow the City to enter private property to conduct debris removal.

The new ordinance states, “Any authorized personnel of the City of La Grange shall have the right to remove debris from any publicly or privately owned land or water, with or without the permission of the owner, to aid in safety operations or law enforcement.”

The ordinance goes on to state, “It shall be unlawful for any person or entity to limit or deny access to any authorized personnel of the City of La Grange to remove debris from property owned by the person or entity.”

Raborn said the ordinance will allow City to quickly remove structures and debris that pose health hazards to surrounding residents.

“When you do a normal condemnation, it can take forever,” Raborn said. “This will help speed that process up.”