Greeley City Council extends Local Disaster Declaration. Here’s how the cost and length of COVID-19 compares to another local disaster.

By Kelly Ragan

At a special meeting Tuesday night, Greeley city councilmembers extended its Local Disaster Declaration. 

Greeley’s been under a disaster declaration since March 16 when COVID-19 emerged. Regional Federal Emergency Management Agency grant experts advised the Greeley Office of Emergency Management it would be best to stay under the declaration, according to council documents, because it makes it possible for the city to receive federal grant funding and reimbursements. 

With it, the city can get reimbursed if city employees need to head to isolation or quarantine. That money can then backfill the cost of that employee being unavailable.  

This declaration will expire Nov. 17. 

According to FEMA’s website, Colorado officially declared COVID-19 an emergency in March. But the incident period is classified as “Jan. 20, 2020 and continuing.” 

That makes COVID-19 the longest lasting statewide emergency incident period in at least the last decade, if not more. 

Remember the 2013 floods? This will give you some perspective: The incident period for that natural disaster, the largest in Weld’s history in terms of financial loss, was Sept. 11-Sept. 30, 2013. 

During that disaster, FEMA approved: 

• 16,558 individual assistance applications 

• Nearly $62 million in individual and households program dollars 

• Almost $57 million in housing assistance 

• About $5 million in other needs assistance 

Since the pandemic is ongoing, FEMA doesn’t yet have a final count on money provided to Colorado.

But as of June 3, FEMA had provided more than $99 million in public assistance funding to Colorado for COVID-19 response, according to a news release.