"since President did not declare this county in East Texas a disaster"

They had quite a list, at first, then added more counties, later.

Which didn't matter, since it falls outside of the covered incident period for the Law that would give them the provisions they wanted to use. These are not always available; it's not a regular part of IRS code. They needed to be codified. You know of the CARES Act provision for "covid disaster."

This particular provision is in the CAA:

"The Consolidated Appropriation Act (CAA) defines qualified disasters as a major disaster that the President declares during the period beginning on January 1, 2020, and ending on February 25, 2021, but which must have occurred between December 28, 2019, and on or before December 27, 2020, and during the period specified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as the period during which the disaster occurred (the “Incident Period”)."