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President grants disaster declaration for Missouri counties damaged by storms

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says that President Barack Obama has issued a major disaster declaration for "areas across Missouri hit by flooding, severe storms and excessive rain during June and July."

Such a declaration means that the federal government will cover 75 percent of the eligible emergency response and recovery expenses, beginning with the storms on June 12.

"I appreciate the president making this major disaster declaration so that our counties, local governments and communities can obtain the assistance they need in recovering their costs," Nixon said in a statement.

"Local officials across Missouri responded quickly to the devastating floods, damaging rain and severe storms, and this declaration will help expedite the recovery process."

The declaration affects 29 counties: Adair, Andrew, Atchison, Buchanan, Caldwell, Carroll, Cass, Chariton, Clark, Clinton, Daviess, DeKalb, Gentry, Grundy, Harrison, Holt, Howard, Jackson, Lafayette, Lewis, Livingston, Mercer, Nodaway, Putnam, Ray, Schuyler, Scotland, Sullivan and Worth.

Nixon said he plans to ask the White House to expand the president's declaration to include the city of St. Louis and nine other counties: Audrain, Knox, Linn, Marion, Monroe, Pike, Ralls, Shelby and St. Louis.

The governor also has asked U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to designate 55 counties as "primary disaster areas, which will permit assistance for farmers from the USDA's Farm Service Agency."

Those counties are: Adair, Andrew, Audrain, Benton, Caldwell, Callaway, Carroll, Cass, Chariton, Clark, Cooper , Crawford, Daviess, DeKalb, Dunklin, Gentry, Grundy, Harrison, Henry, Hickory, Holt, Howard, Jackson, Jefferson, Laclede, Lafayette, Lewis, Lincoln, Linn, Livingston, Macon, Maries, Marion, Mercer, Mississippi, Moniteau, Monroe, Montgomery, Pemiscot, Perry, Pettis, Pike, Platte, Putnam, Ralls, Ray, St. Charles, Ste. Genevieve, Saline, Schuyler, Scotland, Sullivan, Vernon, Warren and Worth.

This article originally appeared in the St. Louis Beacon.

Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.