Kasich mobilizes National Guard to storm areas

A vehi­cle is turned on it

LISA CORNWELL

Asso­ci­ated Press

CINCINNATI — The gov­er­nor on Mon­day mobi­lized the National Guard to tornado-ravaged areas of south­ern Ohio where nearly 300 homes, busi­nesses and gov­ern­ment build­ings were dam­aged by the storms and winds.

Nearly half the struc­tures in the Ohio River vil­lage of Moscow in Cler­mont County are among the nearly 100 in south­west Ohio that received major dam­age. Gov. John Kasich said Mon­day that the troops will help speed cleanup and recov­ery in Moscow and other dam­aged com­mu­ni­ties in the county.

The storms Fri­day night tore off roofs and crum­bled walls in an area 30 to 40 miles east of Cincin­nati. Three peo­ple were killed.

Kasich toured the area Sat­ur­day and dis­patched crews from the Ohio Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion to help local offi­cials with debris removal.

The ini­tial assess­ment by Cler­mont County build­ing inspec­tors found 47 struc­tures in Moscow with major dam­age and 54 with minor dam­age after a tor­nado ripped through the vil­lage of more than 200 residents.

Inspec­tors found 287 dam­aged struc­tures through­out Cler­mont County and said most need sig­nif­i­cant repairs. They say 257 will require per­mits and inspec­tions to deter­mine whether they can safely be occu­pied again.

The ini­tial dam­age esti­mate found at least 32 struc­tures in Tate Town­ship and at least 11 in Franklin Town­ship with major dam­age. At least eight struc­tures in Wash­ing­ton Town­ship were found to have heavy damage.

No esti­mate on the cost of the repairs was avail­able Mon­day. Mes­sages were left for county officials.

Carl Lamp­ing, direc­tor of the county’s build­ing depart­ment, has said offi­cials will con­tinue to eval­u­ate the dam­age and inspect any com­pleted repairs as requested by the public.

A spokesman for Kasich said Mon­day that the gov­er­nor has spo­ken with fed­eral author­i­ties and informed them that addi­tional assis­tance wasn’t nec­es­sary for the time being.

But the gov­er­nor has not ruled out ask­ing for assis­tance, and does want fed­eral offi­cials to look at what fed­eral pro­grams peo­ple in the area might be eli­gi­ble for, Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said.

The gov­er­nor said Mon­day that fed­eral inspec­tors had pledged to begin that effort within 24 hours.

Nichols said the deci­sion not to ask for addi­tional assis­tance was not made for polit­i­cal rea­sons, because the gov­er­nor is a Repub­li­can and the pres­i­dent is a Demo­c­rat, but sim­ply because the sit­u­a­tion is under control.

“We were well-prepared, well-staffed and the gov­er­nor let them know, ‘We’ll come back to you if we need you,’” Nichols said.

Cincin­nati City Coun­cil­man P.G. Sit­ten­feld, a Demo­c­rat, said Mon­day that it was “uncon­scionable and dis­heart­en­ing that Gov­er­nor Kasich would choose not to accept fed­eral funds for relief.”

Sit­ten­feld issued the state­ment after Cincin­nati City Man­ager Mil­ton Dohoney said the city had received a request, appar­ently on behalf of Cler­mont County, ask­ing other com­mu­ni­ties to send equip­ment and peo­ple to assist with cleanup efforts.

Dohoney said that the city will be pro­vid­ing assis­tance, but that appar­ently the state’s deci­sion not to seek a fed­eral state-of-emergency dec­la­ra­tion means that com­mu­ni­ties will not be reim­bursed for the assistance.

Ohio Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tom Niehaus said in a state­ment that the tor­nado moved through an area just seven miles from his home and asked “all Ohioans to keep the com­mu­ni­ties of Moscow, Bethel and oth­ers impacted by this storm” in their prayers.

To help peo­ple affected by dis­as­ters like tor­na­does and floods, you can make a dona­tion to sup­port Amer­i­can Red Cross Dis­as­ter Relief by vis­it­ing redcross.org, call­ing 1–800-RED CROSS (1–800-733‑2767) or by tex­ting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 dona­tion. Con­tri­bu­tions may also be sent to their local Red Cross chap­ter or to the Amer­i­can Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Wash­ing­ton, DC 20013.

Posted by AP News on Mar 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.