Disaster assessment continues in four Iowa counties

Officials from two federal agencies are assessing damage in Iowa caused bytorrential rains, hail and flooding earlier this month. Storms ripped through Black Hawk, Butler, Jones and Woodbury Counties onJuly 2nd and 3rd. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agencyand the Small Business Administration are canvassing those counties todetermine if the level of damage is high enough to warrant a state orfederal disaster declaration. Iowa Emergency Management spokesman DavidMiller.Miller says these counties received all types of damage. Right now, thegroups are only looking at damages of homes and small businesses.There is no official threshold between state and federal emergencydeclarations. The two groups will look at the Fourth of July weekend stormdamage as well as damage acquired earlier this summer. A state declaration deals with the response immediately following a disasterand a federal declaration deals with recovery. The groups will be assessing damage this week and hope to have arecommendation one way or the other to Governor Vilsak soon.