Resources continue to trickle into the Naugatuck Valley following devastating flooding just over a week ago. Many are still waiting to find out what will be covered if anything and where sources of money are.
Resources continue to trickle into the Naugatuck Valley following devastating flooding just over a week ago. Many are still waiting to find out what will be covered if anything and where sources of money are.
“Now that a week has passed, you can really see the delayed damage,” Kaitlyn Kimball said as she showed us around Sunset Farm in Naugatuck, which she co-owns with her husband, Lawrence Passeck.
They are still getting an assessment on how much damage was done to their crops following devastating flooding in the region.
“An access road was like just a river, completely damaged, we have a field on a little bit of a slope, which I was having trouble just standing,” Kimball said.
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As she showed us around the harder hit portion of their vegetable operation, she said of other hard-hit farms in the region including Breezy Knoll Farm and DeSantis Farm, both she estimated sustained tens of thousands of dollars in damage.
“You can be the best farmer in the world, but these weather events are really out of our control,” Kimball said. “Our friends in Watertown, our friends in Southbury, took tens of thousands of dollars with damage.”
She is looking forward to a farmer listening session happening Wednesday in Southbury where she will be representing a few local farms and CitySeed out of New Haven, where she's the director of agriculture.
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She described it as a chance to get directly into the ear of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and state Agriculture Department to voice their concerns and find out about available resources.
Meanwhile, state and local business leaders were in Seymour Monday announcing grants for small businesses.
“Sometimes you see the scope of the tragedy, know it’s really important for all of us to step up and do the right thing,” Governor Ned Lamont said.
The governor announced $5 million the state is bringing online in the form of grants up to $25,000 for impacted businesses to get back on their feet.
“Our goal here is to move quickly but also to learn facts on the ground and evolve as necessary,” Daniel O’Keefe with the Department of Economic and Community Development said.
The applications for those grants go live Sept. 3, according to O’Keefe.
Up in Southbury, Connecticut’s federal delegation is also in the pursuit of more federal funding, specifically targeting homes and businesses.
Senator Richard Blumenthal was in Southbury speaking with town leaders about damage they sustained.
They estimated north of $100 million in municipal costs to make repairs, but that doesn’t include damage to homes and businesses in Southbury, some that were completely devastated.
“It looked like to me like the entire town of Southbury was effected, it’s not just one part of it, one side of it,” Blumenthal said to town leaders.
According to Blumenthal, a major disaster declaration would unlock more comprehensive funding beyond just money for the town to make repairs.
“Which enables broader, deeper, longer-term kind of rebuilding,” Blumenthal said.
Back in Naugatuck, Kimball hasn’t heard anything about resources specifically for farmers, but isn’t surprised. Instead, the hope is for neighbors across the state to support local agriculture, to soften the blow.
“Visit a farmers market, visit a farm stand,” she said.
