Money transfer

City officials are confident donations to various agencies will be included in its disaster relief fund.

Discussions are ongoing with the Salvation Army and Red Cross on how the more than $300,000 donated to the organizations can be transferred to the disaster relief fund so that the money can be eligible for two-to-one funding from the province.

“We’re hoping that we can transfer those funds over,” Mayor Keith Hobbs said Thursday morning.

At issue is how the money can be put into the fund without affecting the organizations’ charitable statuses under Revenue Canada.

City manager Tim Commisso said that although the city is eligible for up to $16 million, only $3.2 million is available for those who were affected by last month’s flood and are uninsured or underinsured.

That means the recently appointed disaster relief committee are tasked with raising $1.6 million. If more is raised, the committee could ask the province to give more.

Claim forms for the fund will be available at public meetings on June 23. Advance money could be given to people within a week once they fill out the complete form .

“It’s really just the first step in submitting the full claim,” Commisso said of the advance money.

The disaster committee will confirm a dollar figure for advance claims in time for Saturday’s meetings.

As the city winds down its relief efforts, it will begin offering assistance to Duluth after the Southern neighbour was hit with major flooding Wednesday. Fire Chief John Hay told Duluth officials that everything from equipment to personnel is available. 

“They’re at the stage we were three weeks ago,” Hobbs said adding the floods have made the two municipalities sister cities in an even truer sense now.

There were no reports of flooding, except for a bit of water in a few basements, after Thunder Bay was hit with up to 50 millimetres of rain Wednesday. City infrastructure manager Darrell Matson said the Atlantic Avenue sewage treatment plant worked well. No bridges roads or other infrastructure in the city saw any damage.

“They remain in a very good state of repair,” Matson said.

Engineers will begin to do a detailed damage assessment on the landfill’s east cell capping project, which hard large parts of its top soil and seeding eroded Wednesday. Matson said the damage is estimated at around $350,000.

While the city remains in a state of emergency, the emergency operations centre could meet for the last time Monday.