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An exploratory call between the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Washington County went as planned last week.

Commissioner Mitch Antle said the call rehashed what the County expects to put out in terms of projects on the Public Assistance side. He said the County knows what they have suffered as a result of the flooding on Tuesday, May 20th well into mid-June.

The issue now is compiling all the documentation that supports that damage and how it was directly related to the flood event. Getting that to FEMA in order for the County to be reimbursed properly for the damages is the main goal and they want to do this in an orderly fashion.

Commissioner Antle said they are planning on meeting with their project manager on Wednesday, Sept. 11th. He said as far as the road districts in Washington County are concerned, they are having a solid movement through the process.

District 1 crews will manage the documentation then while Commissioner Antle is at a County Officers and Deputies Association Conference. They have the documentation already in hand for when the meeting with the program manager takes place. Districts 2 and 3 also have their documentation in hand.

According to Commissioner Antle, Bartlesville will have a "Program Manager" for each project (a damaged area where repairs have been made). Dewey, Ochelata, Vera, Ramona and surrounding communities in the area and throughout the State of Oklahoma will see Project Managers from FEMA pop-up. Instead of one report for the whole County and checks as the come in, different entities will handle their own projects and project manager.

Commissioner Antle said this will be the first year that all paperwork will be done electronically. Local paperwork will be scanned and uploaded into a portal. From the portal, he said they will be able to manage the process all the way through.

Payments can be tracked from start to finish. On the money management side, the process should be cleaner and the County should see those funds coming in that are directly related to one specific area so they can put those monies in the appropriate accounts. It should help the County from the audit side as well.

Commissioner Antle said nothing moves quickly though. There is a typical turnaround of about 18-months from when they expend funds to make emergency repairs to when they receive it. He hopes it will be a shorter process with the new system, but he hesitates to be optimistic.

Several weeks ago, FEMA and Washington County held a kick-off meeting so the County could be aware of the changes. The County said it is being as conscientious as they can with tax payer dollars. Commissioner Antle said they want to recover what they can in County in terms of Public Assistance on the Federal level following this year's disaster.