The flood insurance pipeline has finally started flowing for Schoharie County.
Just days after Hurricane Irene raced through the region, the county had a $1.25 million check in hand from its insurance company, NYMIR, the New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal
But until just two weeks ago, that was it; County Treasurer Bill Cherry was starting to wonder how much longer he could pay the bills.
Then, $3.1 million came in from the National Flood Insurance Program with more expected; total coverage is between $4.5 and $5 million, Mr. Cherry said.
"So we went from zero to $3 million almost overnight," Mr. Cherry said.
The real lifeline, however, will be FEMA, which as of Thursday, had paid the county $1.9 million-a fraction of what Mr. Cherry expects to receive.
The county has filed some $26 million in FEMA claims, 75 percent of which could be covered.
The question now becomes how long the rest of that money will take to arrive.
"That's the unknown," Mr. Cherry said. "FEMA says as long as the paperwork is in order, it's within 45 days. But that's in a perfect world. Our first claims took twice that. So I'm looking at 90-120 days. Hopefully."
The $1.25 million the county saw from NYMIR immediately following the flood included $1 million for building damage-the maximum-and $250,000 for "contents"-a fraction of the real losses.
Collecting from NFIP is a more complicated process, Mr. Cherry said, but there's still the potential of collecting an additional $750,000 there.
To get the county to this point, in December, Mr. Cherry borrowed $10 million-a process that took nearly three months.
Half of that went to pay December's bills; half to January's; by the third week of January it was gone.
"It sounds like a lot of money, but it really wasn't," Mr. Cherry said. "The $10 million came in and the $10 million went out. If we hadn't have gotten the other money...But now we're in much better shape than we were even three weeks ago."
As of February 17, Mr. Cherry said, the county had $9.6 million in available funds-still not as much as it sounds, but a huge jump from when it had $1.5 million to $2 million on hand.
"We're okay," he said. "I'm cautiously optimistic about our cash flow. I don't see us having to borrow again-something I couldn't say three weeks ago--especially now that the FEMA money's started coming in. That will be the real lifeline."