Tuscaloosa County Commission makes emergency disaster declaration

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WBRC) - The Tuscaloosa County Commission voted in favor of an emergency declaration during Wednesday’s commission meeting. The decision came at the request of Tuscaloosa County EMA Director Nick Lolley. County leaders say that’s the first step they had to make locally, to try and recoup what it will cost to repair flood damaged roads in the area.

Early estimates show that repairs in the county jurisdiction alone could be around $2 million. Damaged includes roads with washout damage and culverts underneath bridges getting blown out completely from storm surge.

“So these would be roads, issues with bridges, things that got damaged by high volumes of water. Today, the commission did approve an emergency declaration which is part of that package that will be submitted to the state,” Probate Judge Rob Robertson said.

Lolley said he expects the cities of Tuscaloosa and Northport to submit their damage reports to him by the end of the week.

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