TNVOAD disaster update conference call – May 9, 2011
Lily Velazquez – (FEMA VAL) Her contact information is: cell 571-408-5693 and email eulalia.velazquez@dhs.gov . She will be at the JFO with a 6 member team. She plans to attend the VOAD meeting on Wednesday to explain who VALs are, what they do and what their plans are for TN. There are 4 DRCs open with others set to open on Wednesday. The JFO is located at, 5388 Hickory Hollow Pkwy. in Antioch. This is just an administrative office it is not a location for applicants, applicants should report to one of the DRCs.
Upper East TN
Drema Shreeve – (Arch) Shut down the office Thursday, Friday and went out on Saturday door to door and were able to rehab 27 families that were living in tents, vehicles or what was left of their homes. In conjunction with HPRP Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing dollars, it was not meant to be disaster/emergency relief funds, but keeping to their mission of ending homelessness as currently experienced in their region. She felt like they were well within their bounds and as long as stay within the income guidelines THDA and HUD will allow them to assist until people receive FEMA money and they can help them get permanent housing.
John Freitag – They have chaplains deployed and continue to help first responders and early responders and that will continue to go on for some time.
East TN
David Acres – (TN Baptist Disaster Relief) The kitchen they had set up at First Baptist Greeneville closed down last night after the supper meal. They still have a laundry unit and shower unit in the Washington/Greene county area. One of the shower units was pulled out of the Greene County area. Most of the major chainsaw work has been done there, still a lot of cosmetic and cleanup to be done. They do still have chainsaw work to be done in Mountain City, TN. They have benefited from the NC Baptist Mens group that came across the mountain and helped with 2 chainsaw teams in there and about 40-45 jobs still to complete. The Mennonite group has also helped out in Mountain City as well as Bradley County area.
Bradley County
David Acres – (TN Baptist Disaster Relief) They are working in both Bradley and Hamilton Counties, they have a huge command center set up in Waterville Baptist Church in Bradley where they have chainsaw teams and assessors going out – a lot of work to be done in Bradley County. They have brought in some large equipment to help with large tree removal. Also, still working out of Morris Hill Baptist Church in Chattanooga doing some chainsaw work.
Rhonda Haight – They received a semi and several small truck loads of donations and are expecting more. They are having meetings right now at Bradley and Hamilton County EOCs. Nothing else to report at this time.
Middle TN
Chuck Duby – (Hopeforce International) They have a team in the Chattanooga/Ringgold area working with the Salvation Army to run the 2 Canteens and providing emotional/spiritual care. They also have a team in Harvest, AL after the F4 that came through there. They have been blue tarping houses that looked like they could be saved. He received a call from Joe for a feeding site in Memphis. They are turning their attention toward Memphis right now.
Nashville
No report.
West TN (outside Memphis)
No report.
Memphis
Bill Carr – (UMC) Right now they’re just waiting for the water to fall they are starting to get flood buckets in place, while waiting for the water to recede. It looks like Memphis is going to have water for a while. It is still ugly, a lot of displaced people. Just trying to get the word out for people to hang in there – it will be okay.
East TN
Lou Mulsand – (ETNVOAD) Doing their last priority 1 or emergency job today. Volunteers will start moving to Bradley/Hamilton and into AL. Starting tomorrow after finish the job there the Baptist will start sending volunteers to Bradley/Hamilton and possibly Rhea County. Anyone that would like to post news on the TNVOAD website (www.tnvoad.squarespace.com ), they can log in and post (once approved by Lou). Still working to get the URL updated and changed to TNVOAD.org .
Bryan Crousore – (Church World Services) His organization is most interested in long term recovery and has been told that a long term recovery committee getting organized in Bradley County. In the process of setting up a series of recovery tools and training on-site workshops in the area as we move from rescue/relief to recovery in the area. He will pass that information as many ways as possible once it’s set up. He also said, as shelters open up if you have needs for personal hygiene kits, blankets, baby kits, let him know. They can send those in quantity as needed.
Gary Ward – (VOAD ESC) In order to report time to the state to get government credit, date, number of people, what they did, county they worked in and organization they were with.
Steve Irwin – (Convoy of Hope) He asked where the greatest need will be in relation to the flooding. It was reported that Memphis, hands down, followed by Dyersburg.
The next conference call will be on Tuesday, May 10th at 2:00pm (EST), 1:00pm (CST).