WESTFIELD, Pa (WENY) -- Tioga County Pennsylvania is still picking up the pieces after the remnants of Debby brought devastating flooding to the region last month. Wednesday afternoon, Governor Josh Shapiro made the trip to Westfield to survey some of the damage, and spread a message of hope and resilience for the rebuilding process.
"We try and live by three letters, 'GSD', 'get stuff done every day,'" said Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
It was boots on the ground in Westfield on Wednesday. Governor Shapiro got a first hand look at the devastation left behind by the remnants of Debby back in August.
"It's heartbreaking to see people's livelihoods destroyed, see their homes destroyed, everything that they worked hard for, just wiped out in a matter of minutes," said Governor Shapiro. "As I said to some of the community members before, we're through the emergency piece of this, and I got to thank our first responders for their extraordinary work from the local and state level, they did an amazing job. But, now that we're through the emergency, we have to rebuild, and that's why these resources are critically important and then looking forward."
Tioga County has seen severe flooding twice in the past three years. There's been conversation about what can be done to prevent this from happening again.
"We're going to look at whether it's cleaning out our streams in a responsible way that doesn't create a problem somewhere else, or other things we can do on flood mitigation. We're going to look at all of that," said Governor Shapiro. "I think right now, the most important thing we can do is get some resources into people's hands so they can do the rebuilding they need."
"We went through this three years ago down in Knoxville, and it was heart-wrenching," said Representative Clint Owlett. "Then we drafted a bunch of legislation. We tried to work things through the process. We're hopeful that we can actually get somewhere now. These communities have been hit twice in three years and there's work that needs to be done."
Governor Shapiro met with a variety of state and local officials, including the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. PEMA has been on the ground doing extensive work, and was able to give an update on their progress.
"We originally focused on individual assistance or damage to households, because we really want to turn those supports on as fast as we can. So we processed the request under the governor's signature for a major disaster declaration," said Randy Padfield, the PEMA Director. "So we're waiting to hear back on that. The next piece of that which our staff is working on right now with a larger group of counties is public assistance, and that's a separate request and has a threshold of about $24 million we need to achieve. So that is the next piece that we are going to request."
"We appreciate how fast Shapiro signed the declaration of disaster, how quickly he sent up PEMA to help us. That was a huge help. You know he sent us a lot of resources and I know he's been briefed on everything. But until you meet people that have actually lost their businesses, that have lost their homes, and meet with them, I think that it was super impactful for him. You could, you could see it on his face. I don't think anybody, you know, with a heart could listen to those stories and not be impacted by it. So I think that was important for him to see," said Commissioner Shane Nickerson.
Shaprio says the state has already provided over $5 million to help with the impacts of the flooding. Tioga county has also kicked in relief funds. The Tioga County Commissioners said teamwork between local and federal partners makes all the difference.
"There's no substitution for firsthand hearing those stories, walking through the house of those folks, seeing where memories were made and now they're lost," said Commissioner Sam VanLoon.
"It was great to have Governor Shapiro here to see the damages, to see how this community has come together to clean up the damages and also to look at our creeks and streams. You know we really need to come together with our state and federal partners to work on the creeks and streams, clean out the gravel bars and the debris," said Commissioner Marc Rice.