Some county governments hit by damaging windstorms during the weekend of June 29 are still in the process of collecting clean up costs in their jurisdictions, as a way to help Ohio apply for federal aid.

“Local governments are providing damage assessments to the state,” said Tamara McBride, spokeswoman for the Ohio Emergency Management Agency. “We’re still in the damage assessment process.”

The windstorms caused property damage, downed trees and powerlines, leaving about 1 million statewide without electricity on June 29 and July 1. The aftermath prompted Gov. John Kasich to declare a state a emergency and call in the National Guard.

Ohio has 120 days from the date of the disaster to request a Major Disaster Declaration of the federal government, McBride said. She added that a lot of the counties’ damage assessment reports were trickling in this week.

The June 29 storm was considered a rare event for the Midwest, a “super” derecho (pronounced: deh-REYcho,) or land hurricane. It swept in from Fort Wayne, Ind., and left a 700-mile-wide path of damage on a 12-hour march to Washington, D.C., taking out power to large cities amid a triple-digit summer heat wave. Estimates are that something short of four million customers in the storm’s path lost power.

Some local residents were left without power for days as a result of the storms.

One of the hardest hit areas was Clark County, which is reporting an estimated $365,000 in clean up costs, according to Lisa D’Allessandris, director of the county’s Emergency Management Agency. That cost could increase as more jurisdictions report back to the EMA. In order to be considered for the reimbursement funding, the county must reach a threshold of $468,000 and the state must reach a $15 million threshold for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Miami County Emergency Management reported over $870,000 in recovery costs to the state, according to Kenneth Artz, director of the county’s emergency management office. Approximately $82,000 of that figure comes from Pioneer Electric Cooperative in Piqua, the city which Artz said reported $661,000 in recovery costs to the emergency management office. “They lost four major distribution lines,” Artz said.

“It was pretty much county-wide as far as the damages go,” said Paul Huelskamp, Miami County Engineer, whose office reported over $12,000 in recovery costs. “Most of that is probably wages, equipment and temporary protection measures (signs, road closures and barricades).”

It is unclear how much in clean up costs Montgomery County incurred because the county’s Emergency Management is still collecting data from all its nearly 30 jurisdictions. “We will continue to work with them as long as the state accepts them,” said Jeff Jordan, director of the county’s office. The county plans to follow-up with the jurisdictions it has not heard from yet. The county emergency management office did hear from the Engineer’s office which submitted over $9,000 in recovery costs.”I was surprised that we didn’t have more than we did. We got off a little easy this time,” said Paul Gruner, county Engineer. The majority of the Engineer’s cost was made up of overtime used during that weekend.

Greene County had county-wide damage and incurred approximately $15,000 in recovery costs, but Bob Geyer, county engineer, said he doesn’t plan on seeking reimbursement. “It’s not worth the hassle,” he said of the federal reimbursement process.