LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The work to total up the damages to the county following a heavy early December rainstorm has been completed as part of the process of seeking a state emergency declaration.

The rainstorm, which hit the region on Dec. 11, dumped several inches of rain and ended up flooding a number of roadways around Lake County, resulting in closures and damage.

The cities of Clearlake and Lakeport, and the county of Lake all issued local emergency declarations on the day of the storm.

Lake County's state legislators, Sen. Mike McGuire and Assemblyman Bill Dodd, subsequently asked Gov. Jerry Brown for a disaster declaration for the county, as Lake County News has reported.

However, to qualify for the state disaster declaration, officials said damage estimates had to be submitted to the state.

Lake County Office of Emergency Services Manager Marisa Chilafoe said Monday that the damage assessments have been completed.

“Our preliminary numbers were approximately $4 million,” she said.

That number is for the entire county operational area – including both cities, Chilafoe said.

Most of that $4 million was road damage – including cleanup response and debris removal – in addition to the more serious damage done on stretches of Soda Bay Road and Bartlett Springs Road, according to Chilafoe.

While city and county agencies are expecting to have to deal with much of the road damage, Chilafoe said there were about a dozen homeowners – with damages totaling about $5,000 each – who submitted reports.

Those totals, she said, weren't enough to trigger assistance for individual homeowners.

“This was certainly not an emergency that would bring any individual assistance in. I think we knew that going in by we wanted to collect that information,” Chilafoe said.

The county has made requests to the state for funding assistance with some of the road repair projects. Chilafoe said they won't know the status of those requests for a few weeks.

She said county representatives met last week with members of Cal OES.

Cal OES told Lake County News that Assistant Director of Recovery Charles Rabamad visited Lake County last Thursday.

Officials said Rabamad is to make recommendations to the governor on the declaration.

Chilafoe said local and state representatives discussed the request for an emergency declaration from the governor during that visit.

However, she said there was no indication about which way the request would go.

The county should know the results of its request later this month, Chilafoe said.

In late December, Gov. Jerry Brown issued emergency declarations due to the storm in Marin, Mendocino, San Mateo and Ventura counties.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.