DENTON, Texas – More than $1.6 million has been awarded to Montgomery County, Texas by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for debris and sediment removal accumulated after Hurricane Ike.

The $1,631,996 payment is in addition to more than $14 million already awarded to the county for debris removal. FEMA reimbursed 100 percent of eligible debris removal costs under the Agency’s Public Assistance (PA) program.   

The Public Assistance grant program provides assistance to states, tribal and local governments, and certain private nonprofits to help them recover from disasters or emergencies declared by the president. Learn more about PA at http://www.fema.gov/public-assistance-local-state-tribal-and-non-profit.

Hurricane Ike hit the upper Texas Gulf Coast in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 13, 2008. Ike made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane. Its maximum winds of 110 mph barely missed making Ike a Category 3 storm. Wind gusts hit 125 mph. In 2009, nearly 20.1 million cubic yards of debris had been removed from eligible areas affected by the disaster. That’s a debris pile as big as a football field and nearly eight times the height of the Empire State Building. 

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