DeKalb County is still waiting for word from the Federal Emergency Management Agency as to whether it will be considered a federal disaster area.

On Friday, Sept. 14, Gov. Rod Blagojevich requested the federal declaration of DeKalb County as a disaster area, a decision which comes directly from President George W. Bush.

“The declaration would provide assistance to the area,” said DeKalb city manager Mark Biernacki. “But we’re still waiting for word.”

FEMA officials were in the area for preliminary inspections on Sept. 4 and 5, during which they surveyed the damages done to different areas.

“There’s no real time frame for this,” said Dennis Miller, coordinator of the Emergency Services and Disaster Agency in DeKalb County. “It could take a week or it could take months. We have no real control over it.”

If the declaration is made, a temporary FEMA office will open in DeKalb County. The office will be open for applications for individual assistance, small business loans, government assistance for the costs of the emergency response and hazard mitigation assistance.

“We collected all our information on the area as of last Friday,” said Denise Everhart, a public information officer for FEMA. “The information is collected into a regional report, which is sent to FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C. From there, it’s the president’s job to look at it and make the declaration.”

Other area counties awaiting their declarations include LaSalle, Lake, DuPage, Grundy, McHenry, Will, Cook and Kane. None of these have received federal declarations.

“We’re definitely hoping for it,” Biernacki said of the federal declaration. “There has been a lot of taxpayer dollars spent.”

“There was a sense of urgency for this disaster,” Everhart said. “That’s why we did our inspections so quickly. The declaration process depends on many more factors, including the president’s schedule.”

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