U.S. rep visits Newtonia

Seventh District Congressman Roy Blunt toured the tornadic damage in Southwest Missouri Monday, including the town of Newtonia. 



Stopping off at the historic Civil War Ritchey Mansion, Blunt assured a handful of residents about a declaration of federal assistance. 



“I am going to try to continue to push to get this declaration on this disaster, so you can get disaster assistance potential as well,” Blunt said. 



Blunt surveyed the damage done to the small community of 200 residents, and viewed the damage at the Ritchey Mansion. Blunt also toured the towns of Granby, Purdy and Racine.

“Unfortunately, I have seen way too much disaster damage in the last couple of years.
We are getting a little bit too knowledgeable about what it takes now for communities and individuals to recover and what federal tax payers are willing to do to help,” Blunt told the media. “We are visiting with some families on what they would need to do to keep track of things so that hopefully they will qualify for some federal assistance if the president declares this a disaster area that is covered by the federal law. I think he will.
We have a significant disaster here. We have lots of people affected, substantial loss and, of course, why we are here on the grounds of the Ritchey house, which is important historically, it is not nearly as important as individual families that are affected right now.”

Blunt also said that he talked to Newtonia Mayor Dee Wormington about the city side of the destruction.

“And we are going to talk to the mayor about things that we can do, the federal government may be able to do help particularity with the city cost like the city hall and talk to individual families about the things that help them both families that have insurance and families that don’t have insurance,” Blunt said.

In a prepared statement, Blunt said, “The devastation and destruction caused by the tornadoes that hit Southwest Missouri this past weekend is almost incomprehensible.
Just as we have in the past, families, businesses and entire towns will come together to begin the difficult and painful process of healing, mourning the 16 lost lives and beginning the long process of rebuilding. And I stand ready to help our region get back on its feet in whatever way I can.”

Blunt added, “Given the magnitude of the damage, I expect the federal government to quickly issue a disaster declaration – and I’m glad that FEMA is already on the ground providing assistance. Traveling with Small Business Administration Regional Administrator Sam Jones today (Monday), I have been assured that the SBA is moving quickly, offering much-needed help to get our local businesses up and running again.” 


Asked about what he thinks about the damage left by this tornado, he said, “amazing in its intensity.”

“This tornado damage is always so amazing in its intensity, is also so amazing to me in its selectiveness how you can have one building that is destroyed and the building next to it doesn’t seem like much happened at all,” said Blunt.

Finally, Blunt told the media and residents they are going to work with families to put their lives back in order.

“And for those families that lost someone, they are never going to recover from that, for those families that have someone critically injured in the hospital, their focus is totally on that right now and frankly, as devastating as it is, the families who can be most optimistic are the families that lost things,” he said. “Because things are replaceable, but people that you love are not. And we got way too much on people that you love being involved in the scale of this storm, but we are going to do everything that we can to help every family we can to recover from this massive intrusion into an end of their life.”