Dallas County and the City of Selma will hold two town meetings Sept. 12, one at noon and another at 6 p.m., to collect data and photos from residents who experienced damage in last week’s flash flooding.

Documentation and collection of damage is imperative in requesting assistance from FEMA, said Rhonda Abbott, director of Dallas County Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

The meetings will be held at the Carl Morgan Convention Center. All citizens who have unreported damage are encouraged to attend.

“That’s really the whole gist of this meeting,” Abbott said. “We need to get people to come out if they haven’t already reported their damage to us, the EMA, and let us know about it.”

Abbott also said public health officials will be there to address issues of mold, which is beginning to grow in many homes in the aftermath of the floods.

“It’s just urgent that we get these damage reports in,” she said. “We need these reports to be able to make our requests to the state for federal assistance, and the more reports we have, naturally the more we’ll be better off in making that request.”

In order to fill out a damage report, all that is needed is a name, address, phone number and damage description.

“Just basic information is all we need. Something like ‘my kitchen flooded’ or ‘my entire basement was flooded,’” Abbott said. “If people have photos of their damage, they can bring those Wednesday to the meeting or they can email them to me.”

Because this was a flash flood and not something like a tornado, Abbott said it is a little more difficult to accurately assess the level of damage.

For instance, if it was a tornado, then roofs would be off and damage would be visible, Abbott said.

“At this point, I’m needing people to come to us and call us with the damage instead of us actually coming to them, because we don’t know where they are,” Abbott said.

For more information on the meeting call 874-2515.