Deadline Approaches For Federal Flood Damage Relief

Nearly 33,000 Massachusetts homeowners have applied for federal disaster assistance to deal with flood damage from March's record-setting rain.

Peter Judge, of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, says eligible residents have until May 28 to apply for a disaster grant.

Judge encourages residents to inquire about assistance, even if they are unsure of their eligibility.

"Register anyway," he said. "You can always find out, maybe you're not entitled to anything. On the other hand, it could be 15 minutes of your time well spent if you find out that you're going (to be) eligible for assistance that you didn't think you'd be eligible for."

But, Judge says it could take months to assess infrastructure damage in towns.

"This is more of a process than just writing a check, as we saw with the individual assistance," he said. "The important thing is that communities will know that this money will be in the pipeline."

Federal officials are planning to close three disaster recovery centers on Thursday, as they say fewer people are coming in to request information about the federal aid.