San Bernardino County directs relief for owners of blizzard-damaged property
San Bernardino County Mountain property owners looking to rebuild or repair damage due to the recent blizzard are eligible for financial relief.
On Monday, San Bernardino County Supervisors unanimously voted to waive up to $5,000 in county plan review and permit fees for owners looking to repair or rebuild structures. The waiver is available for each structure and will be funded by $500,000 of the $10 million Emergency Response Fund.
The fund was created on March 1 to address the impacts of the historic storm.
“This waiver is important for the recovery of our mountain communities. As our businesses and residents rebuild, we need to ensure that we eliminate as many additional burdens as possible,” said Supervisors Chair Dawn Rowe, whose district bore the brunt of the blizzard.
Rowe added that she’ll keep pushing for additional resources for mountain residents, who continue to impress her with their "courage and resilience.”
The county’s mountain communities received an unprecedented amount of snowfall in a series of storms that began on Feb. 22 and lasted nearly a week.
Homes, businesses and other structures were damaged by the weight of the snow, which exceeded what they were designed to withstand, county officials said.
With many assessments still to be made, county inspectors have red-tagged 29 structures as too damaged to be inhabited and yellow-tagged 27 damaged structures, allowing for limited occupancy.
One damaged structure was Goodwin’s & Son's Market in Crestline, where the building’s roof collapsed.
The owner of Goodwin’s said despite their best efforts to remove snow from the roof during the “historic storm,” the additional 2 inches of snow after the initial blizzard was too much for the roof to handle.
The number of damaged structures is expected to grow as assessments continue, county officials said.
The Land Use Services Department has created a Storm Response Team focused on supporting the public in the repair and rebuilding of their structures damaged by the extreme snowstorm event. The team will ensure that the plan review and permit process for impacted residents will be expedited to the fullest extent possible.
The rebuilding waivers approved today are the latest in a series of county relief efforts for the mountain communities.
The county is also operating:
Five Commodity Points of Distribution to provide mountain residents with free food, water and other necessary supplies.
A donations program to channel relief from donors ranging from national corporations to individuals.
A prescription delivery program that ensures prescribed medications reach mountain residents who cannot travel to a pharmacy.
A snow-removal reimbursement program that reimburses residents and businesses up to $500 for the cost of hiring a professional to remove snow from their properties.
Information on these and other programs and everything else related to the blizzard recovery effort is available at snowinfo.sbcounty.gov or by calling the SBC’s Storm Help Line at 909-387-3911.
Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at 760-951-6227 or RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: San Bernardino County directs relief for owners of blizzard-damaged property
