In August of 2016, devastating and ‘historic’ flooding occurred in several parts of Louisiana, especially, the City of Central in East Baton Rouge Parish. According to Weather.com over 40,000 homes and businesses were affected by the 20 inches of rainfall – many of which did not have flood insurance. Louisiana’s severe storms and flooding led to a Major Disaster Declaration on August 14th making designated parishes available for federal aid.

Two of our Disaster Recovery Consultants, Kimberly Sekol and Linda Maiellano were deployed shortly thereafter to aid the Central Community School System (CCSS) in Central, Louisiana to assist with the FEMA application and aid in the disaster recovery process.

The Systems had two facilities flood; their administration building and an elementary school that housed 800 students and faculty.  Along with the loss of their work places many of the employees also lost their homes.  We are working to help ensure a maximum financial recovery from all available sources, and to ease the burden of coordinating program and documentation requirements associated with FEMA's Public Assistance Program.  Since we have been on site since early in the process we have been able to assist with the massive task of documenting damages including inventory items lost in the two flooded buildings. We have even managed a few volunteer hours in our spare time. Also in the first 30 days we have been able to document and submit to FEMA over $1 million in costs for reimbursement.

Kimberly Sekol
Disaster Recovery Consultant

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