THOMASVILLE — Grady County has been added to Gov. Sonny Perdue’s “State of Emergency” disaster declaration for 33 counties, in response to the recent severe weather events in the state.

“Any time you can get assistance is good,” Jim Ellis, Grady County Emergency Management Agency director, said Monday.

A specific dollar amount is not yet know, he said, but preliminary estimates — which includes Cairo, Whigham and the county — put the estimated damage at approximately under $1 million.

The original declaration, issued March 30 and amended April 3, included 16 counties — Atkinson, Baker, Ben Hill, Berrien, Brooks, Calhoun, Coffee, Colquitt, Decatur, Early, Lowndes, Miller, Mitchell, Tift, Turner and Worth — and was amended again last week to include Appling, Bacon, Brantley, Clinch, Dodge, Dougherty, Echols, Grady, Irwin, Lanier, Montgomery, Pierce, Toombs, Upson, Ware, Wheeler and Wilcox counties.

“The recent floods in south Georgia have adversely impacted the lives of many Georgians,” Perdue said in the April 10 news release. “The requested disaster funding will help residents, businesses and local governments recover from this disaster and rebuild their lives.”

The severe weather began March 27 and has continued on and off over the last few weeks.

The governor’s request follows joint surveys conducted over the past several days by local, state and federal damage assessment teams, which is a requirement of the disaster declaration process, the release stated.

These assessments, began on April 7, determined that more counties needed to be added to the declaration.

“We rode around with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Georgia Department of Transportation last week,” Ellis said.

Perdue has requested a Public Assistance (PA) program for Grady, which provides funding for debris removal, emergency protective measures, roads and bridges, water control facilities, buildings and equipment, utilities, and parks and recreational facilities.

Perdue said, in his declaration, that the state’s assistance “is necessary to protect the public health, preserve the safety of the public, keep property damage to a minimum, and to restore the social and economic welfare of the citizens in the above-mentioned counties.”

“Damage assessments completed to date confirm that damage from the flooding left hundreds of Georgians in need of assistance,” Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) Director Charley English said in the release. “Our agency will continue working with local emergency officials to provide needed state resources and pursue available federal assistance.”

For more information, visit www.gema.ga.gov or www.fema.gov.

Ellis said portions of Big Slough, Miller and Cuffhead roads remained closed in Grady County, which received approximately 15 inches of rain.

He said the county received extensive damage when Tropical Storm Faye came through in 2008 and work done to repair situations from that storm helped this time around.

“The primary damage to our county is unpaved roads,” he said. “We’ve seen a lot of erosion from where water has stood or runoff that has beat down the roads.”

The county has been grading and hauling in dirt to try to repair them.

County Administrator Rusty Moye, who said the county will be following the declaration process to see what develops, said more rain events like the one the area was experiencing Monday afternoon hurt the process.

“We’ve been trying to repair roadways, ditches and washouts, but when we have another storm like today that comes in and drops a bunch of water at one time, it creates more washouts because the water does not have a chance to soak in and top soil and debris clogs up the drains,” he said.