The city of Rome continues to recover from a July tornado that took down some landmark buildings and caused millions of dollars in damage.
Rome Mayor Jeffery Lanigan said that on Monday, the city did not meet the FEMA threshold to receive federal funding due to the July storm. Lanigan said there was not enough damage to public property, and the city was about five million dollars in damage short.
"It's a major number that they require you to hit, which is $37 million," Lanigan said. "When it comes to flooding it's a little easier to hit that number because you have a lot of infrastructure that was damaged, you have the roadways, sewer drainage, things like that. With a tornado it's a little different, we had a lot of private homes that were affected, a lot of private property that was affected."
Now he says working with New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer's offices to find other grant funding opportunities is the next step.
Even without federal aid, Lanigan said so far community funds set up by the city, county, and local community foundation were able to give over two million dollars to private property owners and small business owners in the recovery efforts.
"We're doing this as a community and we're all here together," Lanigan said. "We're just hoping everybody stays positive and continues to move forward."
While the applications for local funding are now closed, Lanigan says some submitted applications are still under review for receiving aid.
