WATSEKA, Ill. (WAND): February flooding is continuing to impact Illinois residents. The flood waters may have receded but many are still recovering.
"Pretty much the whole house was affected," Roy Tykol, a Watseka resident, says. "It got up into the house about eight to ten inches. It kind of ruined everything. It's a big old mess basically."
Roy is not alone.
126 houses in Watseka were destroyed and another 850 were effected.
"I'm trying to clean up and do what I can but I don't really know what else I can do," Tykol says.
Today, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, joins IEMA, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.
They are walking through homes and businesses, assessing the damage to determine if federal aid is needed.
"In order to qualify for federal assistance there's really a process," Cassie Ringsdorf, the FEMA spokeswoman, says. "And this is the early step of this process. We need to see the damage, we need to assess the impact, and that will give us a better sense of whether or not they need to request federal assistance."
It's been almost a month since the flooding but Illinois emergency officials say it's important to take their time requesting federal aid.
In 2008, after similar flooding, their request was denied.
"So we got in quickly, got our request in quickly, and we ended up getting denied," Patti Thompson, with IEMA, says. "And so we ended up finding out that the water had gone down and there were many more homes that we had not included in the first request."
She says they've learned from this and are taking more precautions.
"We've tried to be quick and efficient but we want to make sure we're complete as possible so [that] we're providing the best possible request, if that's the avenue we go," Thompson says.
If they determine federal aid is needed, they will ask President Trump to declare a state of disaster.
The emergency agencies will be in Iroquois, Kankakee, and Vermilion County.
If federal aid is approved, homeowners could receive up to $34,000 in grant money.
