The Freeborn County Department of Emergency Management has applications from Freeborn County, cities in the county and townships in the county that indicate any damage from the June 17 tornado outbreak and the cost estimate of that damage. The estimated cost of all public damage incurred on June 17 is in excess of $300,000.

Mark Roche is the director of the Department of Emergency Management and said these estimates were submitted on June 23 to the Region 5 representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for consideration.

“Just in Freeborn County there was about $150,000 to county property like roads and bridges,” Roche said.

The city of Albert Lea had no damage but used about $4,000 toward overtime hours for personnel who helped on June 17. The cities of Conger, Glenville, Hayward, Hollandale and Geneva had no damage in the city limits but most were out of power and had to use generators, which is a cost. Most of those cities also sent out firefighters and personnel to help the night of the tornadoes.

“The city of Clarks Grove had about $15,000 in damage,” Roche said.

The city of Alden had power outages and estimated the cost of running generators was about $3,000. Townships in the county also incurred damages.

“Bath Township had debris cleanup and building damage,” Roche said. “They had about $50,000 of damage.”

Carlston Township had about $2,000 of damage, and Manchester Township had about $35,000 of damage. Roads and bridges in Manchester Township were damaged and about three tons of debris has been removed. Hayward Township had about $1,000 of damage, and Pickerel Lake Township had about $8,000 of damage from grating and replacing road signs.

Utility companies were also affected by the storms. Freeborn-Mower Cooperative Services had around 100 poles down and spent about $180,000 replacing them and hiring crews to assist them in restoring power. It’s estimated that about 460 utility poles were down throughout the county on June 17.

County Board

In an emergency Freeborn County Board of Commissioners meeting Friday at 1 p.m., the board approved a resolution requesting a presidential declaration of a major disaster. The resolution was unanimously agreed upon by Commissioners Glen Mathiason, Jim Nelson, Dan Belshan and Christopher Shoff. Commissioner Linda Tuttle was not present at the meeting. County Administrator John Kluever said the resolution was just another step in the process after a natural disaster.