$21 million for the ice storm . . . just for CU . . . yowzers.
That's the amount of money Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Roy Blunt helped land from the federal government to pay for damages to City Utilities' during the January ice storm.
The money comes from FEMA, of course.
Bond and Blunt beat out Sen. Claire McCaskill with the release. But that's just politics.
"Many fell victim to the January storm that swept across our state. The storm was a tremendous hindrance to residents and businesses across the City, many of whom were without power for more than a week. These federal dollars will hopefully help to get City Utilities and its infrastructure back to where it was before the storm," said Bond.
Congressman Blunt said, "Last January’s ice storm was the worst, most destructive natural disaster to hit Southwest Missouri in at least a generation, and probably a lot longer than that. Thankfully, federal authorities are in the process right now of working with our public utility sector to cover the loss of infrastructure and equipment so that Missouri rate payers won’t be stuck with the bill."
According to Blunt and Bond, FEMA will provide Missouri with $21,285,379 to repair a number of broken poles, damaged transformers, broken cross arms, damaged street poles, blown fuses, and other critical infrastructure needs affected by the storm.
UPDATE . . 9:14 P.M . . .(Blunt and Bond sent their release at 3:19 p.m. McCaskill sent hers at 4:23 p.m.)
"Springfield was hit hard by the winter ice storms and was left with the enormous cost of repairs,” Sen. McCaskill said in a statement. “We must continue to bring federal dollars back to our state to help build and maintain Missouri’s economic infrastructure, but in a fiscally responsible manner. This grant does just that.”
2 comments:
Wait, wait... wait!
You mean, the money we fork over every two weeks (it's payday, baby!) that goes to help infrastructure... roads, bridges, schools, etc etc... just went to a utility?
How is it that City Utilities gets money for damages... and Joe Blow couldn't get his power restored for weeks because his headend broke off his house. CU didn't pay for that, of course.
And... CU was supposed to be keeping their lines clear of trees. Had they done that, they might not have needed our $21M.
This... and "clean-burning" coal, too.
And I'm not even a CU customer. Give me a break!
In the words of the legendary Senator Everett Dirksen:
"A billion here and a billion there, and soon you're talking about real money."
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