First Selectman Paul Roy is adding private residences to the damage list the town is creating from last a freakish July 8 thunderstorm.
Some five inches of rain fell in a few hours, washing out roads and flooding buildings.
At a meeting of the Board of Finance July 26, Roy said private homeowners have contacted him saying their properties were damaged in the subsequent flooding.
The town will be teaming with Oxford and Beacon Falls to send a damage estimate to the state or federal government in the hope of getting reimbursed.
Roy still hasn’t placed a dollar amount on the total damage. Private property owners who don’t have flood insurance have been looking to the town for help, Roy said.
“We’re trying to get a handle on the total dollars and cents of repairs that need to be made,” Roy said.
At this point, just from two weeks of making repairs to erosion pits carved out in local roads, the town knows the damage is in excess of $500,000, he said.
But he believes the threshold for New Haven County, to qualify for federal reimbursement, is $2.7 million. He will not know until sometime this week whether the town can meet that level of damage. The town engineer is still collecting information.
State legislators who represent Seymour are trying to help the town recover costs too, he said.
