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Date: 4/20/2022
CHESTER — At the end of March, state officials announced the amounts to be distributed of the $7.5 million to small towns in western and central Massachusetts as disaster relief payments for the July 2021 storm.
Southern Hilltowns receiving aid include Blandford, $39,131; Chester, $590,034; Granville, $11,910; Huntington, $358,534; Middlefield, $9,017; Otis, $28,923; and Tolland, $19,716. The aid is based on town spending for local repairs. The storm cell caused an estimated $22 million in damages to 50 towns and 25 state parks and forests.
State Sens. Adam Hinds and Jo Comerford, and state Reps. Natalie Blais and Jacob Oliveira, gathered at Chester Town Hall on Jan. 13 to announce the total grant of $7.5 million, which comes from Massachusetts’ share of the federal American Recovery Plan Act.
Towns needed grant funds because initial damage assessments by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency were enough get the Federal Emergency Management Agency involved, but fell short of thresholds for federal aid. Hinds said town officials sent out a “mayday — we’ve got a problem here” message requesting.
“Despite no federal assistance, the towns were still stuck fixing the roads,” Hinds said.
Thanking town officials like Chester Town Administrator Katherine Warden, and the Board of Selectmen, for their persistence, Hinds said, “This is how government is supposed to work.”
Warden thanked the local efforts of Chester Highway Supervisor Carl Baldasaro and his crew for responding and for documenting the level of damage. She said they spent hours with MEMA and FEMA, and although they didn’t meet the threshold, she said the MEMA and MassDOT regional offices were very supportive of the effort.
In the end, the state gave Chester the ability to overspend its highway account for sand and gravel for immediate repairs to the roads that were washed out, both paved and unpaved.
Blais announced Chester’s award amount at a meeting of the Board of Selectmen on March 28.
Although the awards fell short of the total amount of the damages in the towns, officials were grateful to be reimbursed and thanked Blais for the road funding.
“It saved our bacon,” said board member John Baldasaro.
Blais said although she will no longer be representing Chester next year due to redistricting, she hoped they would continue to work together.
“I’m always guided by what rural communities need,” she said, adding that she will be making the case for unpaved roads, which suffered the most damage from the storm, in the infrastructure bill.