Marion County Emergency Management Coordinator Jeff Anderson has announced that as a result of the severe weather events that have affected Marion County starting on April 17, 2013 and culminating with the significant heavy wet snow that fell on May 3, 2013, the Marion County Board of Supervisors have issued a local disaster declaration for Marion County. Substantial flooding occurred that occurred early in this time period caused in excess of $150,000 in damage to Marion County, other local governments and some nonprofit organizations. The snow event of recent has caused significant disruption to electrical utilities in Marion County, and left over 1,500 electrical utility customers without power for various lengths of time throughout the day.
At 6 PM on May 3rd, the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division Duty Officer was notified on this local declaration, after concurrence of the emergency declaration by Supervisor Agan, Supervisor Raymie, and Board Chair Kingery.
The actual declaration reads as follows:
MARION COUNTY DISASTER DECLARATION
Marion County has suffered from a severe weather type of incident that occurred began on 4/17 and again on 5/3, 2013 causing severe damage to public and private property, disruption of utility service, and endangerment of health and safety of the citizens of Marion County within the disaster area. Therefore, the County Board of Supervisors has declared a state of emergency authorized under Iowa State Statute and will execute the expenditure of emergency funds from all available sources, the invoking of mutual aid agreements, and the applying to the State of Iowa for assistance.
At this time, there are no emergency shelters open in Marion County. Marion County Emergency Management is monitoring the situation, and should the situation worsen, or requests for sheltering be received, is situated to open shelters for those in need. Residents affected by the electrical outage, who need sheltering should call 641.828.2256. Marion County Emergency Management was provided the following update from MidAmerican Energy regarding the outage status. MAE expects the overnight outages to be approximately 1,000 customers in Marion County, however they expect that a large majority of those customers will be restored by 6 AM on May 4th.