BENTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS, Ark. — The Benton County Quorum Court has approved the creation of a new account for recovery efforts after multiple tornadoes swept through the area on Memorial Day weekend.
The new account allows the county to keep tabs on all of the money they're spending on debris pickup and other recovery efforts. Judge Barry Moehring says the county will get a 75% reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but that will take a few months.
"We have a reserve fund, basically, our savings account, if you will, and we're moving money from that account over into another account so that we can keep really good track of it. FEMA requires very good accounting. We'll have a federal audit of those funds, and we need to make sure that we can account for every single penny that's spent on recovery efforts,"
Across Benton County, Judge Moehring says there are about 370 county roads impacted and county crews are still working to get debris picked up.
To help efficiently pick up more debris, the county works with a Mississippi disaster recovery company called Looks Great Services.
"So far, they've picked up about hundreds of thousands of cubic yards off of county roads. and just keep in mind, every cubic yard is about the size of a washing machine. That's in addition to the nearly 50,000 cubic yards that our road department picked up before the recovery company got out there and started their efforts."
According to Peter Masonis with the city of Rogers, almost 200 Olympic swimming pools worth of debris has been collected.
Moehring said before the county hired contractors, they estimated the need for at least $5 million worth of debris cleanup assistance.
"I don't believe that's going to be enough. None of us believe that's going to be enough. That's going to be the first amount that we're putting into this account," said Moehring.
Benton County will continue doing debris pick-up for the next couple of weeks. If you still have debris needing to be picked up, county officials say to have it at the curb and separated. For information on storm relief in Benton County click here.
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