ATHENS COUNTY, Ohio — Representatives from the Ohio Emergency Management Agency recently visited several Southeast Ohio counties to inspect damage caused by recent storms to determine if disaster relief funding will become available to local governments.
An inspection doesn’t guarantee that disaster relief funding will be disbursed and is instead just one step in the process, a spokesperson for the Ohio EMA told the Independent in an email.
“While we are unsure what, if any, disaster assistance will be available in your area, the process to [obtain disaster relief funds] always begins with damage assessment,” the spokesperson wrote. “Should any kind of state or federal disaster assistance become available we will ensure the local [emergency management agency] is notified.”
The Athens County EMA prompted the inspection by submitting damage estimates to the Ohio EMA. These estimates were prepared by Jeff Maiden, the Athens County Engineer, and Saleh Eldabaja, the director of engineering and public works for the city.
“We forwarded those [damage estimates] to the state EMA,” said Melissa Blank, deputy director of the Athens County EMA. “[The Ohio EMA] reviewed those estimates and sent us a list of roads that they wanted to inspect, just to get a better idea of [the damage]. You can’t really see damage from just a spreadsheet.”
Damage in Athens
Andrew Chiki, the deputy service-safety director for the city of Athens, explained that the costs of the storm can be broadly classified as two types of expenses: labor and physical damage. Chiki pointed to the fire department’s emergency protocols as an example of labor costs incurred as a result of extreme weather.
Labor costs include overtime pay for emergency response, for example from the local fire department, Chiki said.
“Let’s say we had another storm come through and an active flood situation happens at that point, the fire department would handle the emergency response,” Chiki said.
In terms of physical damage, the city’s most expensive repair will be on the Joneswood Drive slippage, which has torn apart the road and destroyed a house owned by Fannie Mae, a U.S. government sponsored agency which oversees mortgages. Athens City Council has already approved $600,000 for emergency repairs on Joneswood Drive. The repairs will stabilize the road by installing a retention wall.
Other roads in the city of Athens have also suffered storm damage. For example, Terrace Drive has been damaged by a much smaller slippage. In addition to road damage, a city communications tower partially collapsed as a result of a falling tree.
“It’s a fairly complicated situation, in the sense that getting up there safely [to repair it] is a challenge,” Chiki said. “It’s not necessarily in danger of complete collapse or anything like that. It’s really just access to be able to either take it down, replace it, repair it, or some variation of that.”
As of recently, the communications tower serves as a backup system. Fiber cable installed between city buildings now serves as the primary system.
“Iif this was a few months ago, we’d be having a very different conversation, because [it would have] essentially resulted in the public works office, the water plant, all of those different entities being cut off from communications,” Chiki said.
Eldabaja estimated that the total amount of physical damage caused by the storm to the city of Athens is at least $750,000.
Countywide damage
Landslide damage wasn’t just limited to the city of Athens; a number of county and township roads were torn apart as a result of shifting earth. Brady Road in York Township suffered a particularly severe slippage with one section of the road almost completely collapsing.
“I’ve got three landslides that I’d like to get fixed as part of [the disaster relief process],” Maiden said.
Maiden added that many employees work overtime as part of storm management efforts, clearing debris from the roads and putting up “road flooded” signs.
“They’re managing the flood while it’s happening,” Maiden said. “As soon as it’s over, they’re out driving the roads, trying to unplug our culverts and checking for landslides, looking for landlines and trees down, those kinds of things.”
Maiden estimated that repairing Brady Road will cost the county just under $600,000. Repairs for the other slippages and damage to culverts are estimated cost just over $1 million. Overall, Maiden estimated that it will cost the county at least $1.6 million to repair all the roads and culverts.
What comes next
Blank said that the Ohio EMA will provide a briefing to the governor’s office based on its inspection of storm damage in Athens County and surrounding counties. Blank said that the Athens County EMA expects to hear more about the results of the inspections sometime in June.
“When state EMA left us that day, [the Ohio EMA] still had two, maybe three additional counties that they were going to do damage assessments in,” Blank said. “The hope is that together as a group of counties we would qualify for federal damage. If we do not, there’s still a possibility that the state could declare it a disaster, and we could qualify for state money.”
Both the city of Athens and the county engineer said damage from the storm could worsen as a result of future weather placing more pressure on already damaged infrastructure. Maiden said the county avoids doing these repairs unless funding has already been appropriated.
“You can go ahead and take the risk, but I don’t unless it’s a situation where it’s an emergency [and] we have to get something done immediately,” Maiden said.
Teresa Fouts-Imler, director of the Athens County EMA, said that continuing damage to any infrastructure would only be paid for in the event of additional inspections.
“It would be a separate incident,” Fouts-Imler said. “You would have to have another storm on another date and submit another damage assessment”
Unfortunately, the city of Athens doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for disaster status to repair the storm damage.
“Regardless of whether the state or federal EMA declares it a disaster and are willing to put money in for those repairs, we have to move on Joneswood,” Chiki said. “It would be very, very helpful to have that [disaster] declaration and to be able to recover those costs, but we still have to get the job done.”
Editors Note: This story was updated at 4:07 PM on 6/5/2025 to include cost estimates from the County Engineer
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