Five months after tornadoes and high winds tore through central and eastern Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine has authorized state disaster relief funding for 13 counties still tallying the damage. The counties — Belmont, Carroll, Coshocton, Guernsey, Harrison, Holmes, Knox, Licking, Morrow, Noble, Perry, Tuscarawas, and Van Wert — reported an estimated $5,512,039 in storm-related damages from the severe weather that struck between March 11 and March 16, 2026.
DeWine's August 6 announcement activates the State Disaster Relief Program, a reimbursement mechanism covering damage repairs, debris removal, and emergency protective measures, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch. The authorization itself does not hand counties a check. Instead, it empowers the Ohio Emergency Management Agency to request formal funding allocations from the Ohio Controlling Board, according to the Office of Governor Mike DeWine. Ohio EMA will now begin working with the 13 counties to process reimbursements for the storm damage, per the Dispatch's reporting.
Why It Took Five Months
The gap between the March storms and the August authorization reflects a required, multi-stage vetting process rather than any single delay. Local governments first had to complete detailed damage assessments and confirm that costs surpassed the program's per-capita threshold, per Sandy Mackey, before the state could even consider activation. That threshold, set at $4.10 multiplied by a county's population for Federal Fiscal Year 2026, determines whether a county's damage total is severe enough to trigger state involvement, according to the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.
Counties also had to confirm that damages fell short of the far higher threshold required for federal FEMA disaster declarations. The State Disaster Relief Program operates strictly as a secondary funding mechanism, applying only when storm damages exceed local budget capacity but don't reach the federal Public Assistance threshold, the Governor's office notes. That distinction explains why these 13 counties are receiving state — not federal — aid for their losses.
What Local Governments Still Owe
Even with state help on the way, local jurisdictions aren't off the hook financially. Under program rules, state reimbursements cover 75% of eligible public infrastructure repair, debris removal, and emergency protective measure costs, leaving local governments to supply a 25% matching share, according to WJER Radio. Counties and eligible non-profits must also move fast: once the program is officially made available, applicants have just 14 days to submit a formal letter of intent, per the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, and must demonstrate that local resources were already exhausted.
Tuscarawas County offers a glimpse at what that damage looked like on the ground. The county recorded wind gusts up to 65 mph during the March 13-16 windstorm, triggering dozens of emergency calls, structural roof collapses, and an estimated $700,000 in public property damages on its own, WJER's coverage indicates. Hoodline previously reported on the storm's immediate aftermath, when central Ohio was left in the dark as utility crews scrambled to restore power across the region.
Part of a Recurring Pattern
This isn't Ohio's first disaster relief activation of the year. DeWine had already activated the program earlier in 2026 for 11 counties following Winter Storm Fern, which dumped near-record snowfall on the state from January 24 to January 27, per WJER's reporting — a storm Hoodline covered when DeWine declared a state of emergency ahead of its arrival. Local road crews had already incurred significant costs clearing that January snowfall before the March storms hit.
The timeline also lines up with prior years. In August 2025, DeWine similarly authorized State Disaster Relief Program assistance for 12 Ohio counties affected by storms and flooding that occurred between February and July of that year, according to WSEO 107.7 WAIS, suggesting these late-summer authorizations for spring storm damage follow a standard administrative timeline rather than an unusual delay. Since 1985, the Ohio Emergency Management Agency has administered the program across more than 90 disaster incidents, distributing over $113 million in state recovery aid to local communities, per the Marietta Times.
