Oklahoma emergency management officials are in close contact with their counterparts in Virginia. In August, Virginia was hit with a 5.8-magnitude earthquake in rural Louisa County, roughly 100 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. Initial damage estimates were reported at $9 million, with up to 1,000 houses affected.
But when the state initially applied for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in September, the request was denied by President Barack Obama, who gets the final say on whether a disaster area is eligible for federal funds.
Since then, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell appealed the decision and won, the announcement coming Nov. 4.
McDonnell said the appeal listed damages of $22 million, with more than 1,400 homes affected. Both of those figures were considerably higher than the original request, he said.
And like many Oklahomans affected by the 5.6-magnitude quake that struck Nov. 5 in rural Lincoln County, most of the property owners in Virginia had no viable insurance to cover the losses, McDonnell said.
Federal disaster aid, for those who qualify, can include low-interest loans and grants for rebuilding, disaster housing assistance and unemployment benefits. With federal damage assessment teams already on the ground in Lincoln County, the lessons learned in Virginia are being put into use right now.
Michelann Ooten, deputy director of the state Emergency Management Department, said her office has been in contact with their counterparts in Virginia since shortly after the quakes struck earlier in the month.
“We are aware of what they've been through and we're learning about what happened with them along the way,” Ooten said.
She said her department is even going so far as to use Virginia's disaster relief documents as a guide as they go through a very similar experience. “We're capturing all their documents and learning from their mistakes,” she said. “We're using them as templates for our own.”And if Oklahoma's request for federal aid is denied, it wouldn't be the first time, Ooten said. “This is Oklahoma,” she said. “We've dealt with FEMA before ... we know what we're doing.