Illinois Emergency Management Agency Director James Joseph provided an update that the preliminary damage assessments are currently underway in several counties that were affected by the severe flooding and storms between December 23, 2015 and January 13, 2016.

Illinois has until February 12 to submit a request to the President for federal assistance related to this incident. Public Assistance and Individual Assistance Preliminary Damage Assessments conducted by IEMA, FEMA, and the SBA are underway. As of Wednesday, due to flood water only recently subsiding, the PDA process is not yet complete. The State of Illinois has requested a time extension pending the completion of the PDA process.

Joseph further stated they continue to work very closely with the FEMA teams in the field, and once the IEMA has the opportunity to review the data from FEMA, they will be in a better position to assess their next steps.