Thanks all for answering.

Yes. I had changed the date of the payment to Jan 16th (from Feb 15th) in order to make the system think it was timely and I believe that works. I'm a little concerned about the IRS sending a notice on this and it seems that there ought to be a way of notifying the IRS that taxpayer is claiming exception due to a disaster declaration. 

Oh well ... what's a few more IRS notices.