State Rep. Ken Borton on Wednesday announced his support of a legislative effort to secure $300 million for ice storm recovery efforts in Northern Michigan. If approved, the plan would send $75 million in state relief to secure an additional $225 million in federal dollars for communities most severely impacted by the storms.

“The pictures and videos cannot show the amount of devastation that’s up here,” said Borton, R-Gaylord. “I’ve talked to linemen who have worked across the country, and they’ve told me they’ve worked category five hurricanes that weren’t this bad. This widespread damage was unprecedented. We still have thousands of people who don’t have power and many who can’t get to their homes. There is so much debris that’s just been pushed into the right-of-way because there’s nowhere for it to go and no one to clean it up because we’re running out of funding. We’ve exhausted our resources to the point that it’s created a tinderbox we need to address immediately.”

The plan, House Bill 4328, would allocate $75 million in state dollars to assist Northern Michigan communities in relief efforts. The funding would support disaster relief grants, which will aid local communities in emergency management assistance, continued operation of warming centers and purchase of emergency supplies, cleanup and recovery efforts, unemployment benefits and temporary employment opportunities for displaced workers, energy assistance, and repair or replacement of damaged public infrastructure.

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