Allegan County considers asking for aid

ALLEGAN COUNTY, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Clean up continues in Allegan County as leaders there consider asking the state for help.

On Thursday Allegan County officials will decide whether or not to ask Governor Granholm to declare a state of emergency. That designation would help secure federal aid to help clean up damage from recent storms. The county has already declared a local state of emergency.

Days after the storm that rocked Allegan County, including an EF-2 tornado touching down, there are still roads out, and trees down. It's that kind of damage that county officials are hoping will get them a broader disaster designation.

"Absolutely, absolutely, you can look around, you can see it's pretty tore up," said William Lawson, whose home was damaged by the storm.

For the Lawsons, there's no two ways about it, Allegan County is a disaster. That comes from two people who came out nearly unscathed from the last series of storms.

"Almost everything was missed, we lost the skirting on our mobile home, our truck got a tree on it, but missed all the structures, I think we're lucky," said Shaun Lawson.

The view from the Lawsons' home across a lake has been a beautiful line of trees, but now there's a hole with a bunch of exposed limbs. Probably the path where an EF-2 tornado came through. Closer to the house, there's also tree damage that the Lawsons are still clearing.

"As you can see, we're still not finished, but we've been working every day since the storm on Saturday, little by little," said Shaun.

Across Allegan County, people have spent the past days digging out from the storms, and county leaders will decide on Thursday whether to bring their plight to the governor's office in the hopes of receiving state or federal aid.

The Lawsons, both of whom are disabled, are doing their best to clean up the mess around them, and consider themselves lucky to have been away from the house when the storms blew through. They suspect people across Allegan County could use some of the aid a disaster declaration would bring.

"There is complete devastation for many people," said Shaun.

Across Allegan County the damage is evident, limbs have been ripped from trees, entire trees have fallen everywhere. Those living in the area definitely feel like a tornado came through, and they are nervous about the possibility of another series of storms that could be brewing for Thursday evening.