Seven Municipalities Added to Virginia Disaster Declaration

RICHMOND, Va. –– Federal disaster assistance is being made available to seven additional Virginia municipalities that suffered damages during the derecho and severe storms of late June 2012.

Public Assistance – which is aid to state and local governments, schools, and certain private nonprofits — is now available in Franklin, Montgomery, Smyth and Stafford counties and the cities of Buena Vista, Falls Church and Harrisonburg.

The municipalities were added to the disaster declaration following new damage assessments requested by the state, and conducted last week by local officials, representatives of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, and FEMA.

The additions bring the total public assistance designations to 51 counties and 18 cities.

Public Assistance grants cover 75 percent of approved eligible costs. Grants will help pay for the emergency protective measures taken during the storm, debris removal from public roads, and permanent repairs to public infrastructure, highways, bridges, utilities, schools, museums, parks, and other taxpayer-funded facilities.  Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide. 

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards. FEMA Region III’s jurisdiction includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.  Stay informed of FEMA’s activities online: videos and podcasts are available at http://www.fema.gov/medialibrary and www.youtube.com/fema.   Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/femaregion3.

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Seven Municipalities Added to Virginia Disaster Declaration

Hope Village: Helping Volunteers Help the Souris Valley

Hope Village: Helping Volunteers Help the Souris Valley 

Release Date: June 11, 2012
Release Number: 1981-ANF004

» More Information on North Dakota Flooding

» 2012 Region VIII News Releases

Volunteers are often the lifeblood of a disaster recovery effort. Following the Souris River flooding, volunteers have already helped countless families return to their flood-damaged homes. But the same housing shortage that is affecting displaced residents has limited the number of volunteers that can come in to the area and help. On the grounds of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in south Minot, a unique solution to that problem has sprung up in the form of Hope Village.

Hope Village is a temporary community that will house incoming volunteers. It includes trailers that provide sleeping quarters, bathroom and shower facilities, and a large dining tent that serves three meals a day. It is the culmination of efforts from a coalition of local faith-based and community volunteer organizations. Much like Henry Ford’s original assembly line, the different volunteer agencies have divided up the tasks for managing the facility, playing to their strengths. For example, cooking duties are being handled by the Southern Baptists.

“Hope Village was borne out of necessity and we now have a place to house and feed the teams that are coming in from the various agencies and churches,” says Bob Lower, a United Methodist volunteer coordinator and lay leader at Faith United Methodist Church in Minot. “There was nowhere for people that wanted to come and help to stay. With the oil boom, everything was tied up. As a part of the Hope Village mission, we took on the challenge of housing these people and feeding them for the whole summer.”

But Hope Village does much more than provide food and shelter for volunteers. It is also a hub of activity, working closely with the Resources Agencies Flood Team (RAFT) to direct the volunteers to pre-identified individuals and families who are in need of assistance. It’s a streamlined process to ensure donated labor and resources are used as efficiently as possible.

“Our focus is on helping those people who have been affected by the flood get back into a safe and secure space,” says Lower. “We do that by providing assistance in coordination with the case management system. The case management system takes people through the process, assessing what they need to get back in, be it materials, labor and the appropriate skill sets. It dovetails with what the homeowner can do by themselves. We will complete enough of the home to get them back in. For example, with a couple living in a four bedroom home, we completely finish one bedroom along with the common use areas needed for safe and secure living.”

With the large number of homes impacted by the flooding, Hope Village and its resident volunteers have their work cut out for them. However, those involved are prepared for a marathon rather than a sprint.

“We will be here for a number of years to get through all of the need that there is,” says Lower. “We can’t do all of the homes in one year, but we are going to make a significant impact this first year. This year we opened the first week of April and will go to the first of October. We’ve already set the 2013 work year. That’s going to be from the April 8 to September 28. During the winter months, we will organize local volunteers from the community to keep work going inside homes.”

To learn more about Hope Village visit hopevillagend.org.

Last Modified: Monday, 11-Jun-2012 10:01:20

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Hope Village: Helping Volunteers Help the Souris Valley

Making History … And Preserving It

Making History … And Preserving It 

Release Date: June 11, 2012
Release Number: 1981-ANF002

» More Information on North Dakota Flooding

» 2012 Region VIII News Releases

Ward County’s hub of history itself became the site of historic flooding last June.

Pioneer Village, the home and showcase of the Ward County Historical Society located next to the state fairgrounds, suffered devastating losses in the flood.

All 13 of its buildings received at least some damage. The railroad depot had up to eight feet of water and the warehouse, which held 13 antique automobiles, had seven feet. The entire original contents of the former Immanuel Lutheran Church, nearly a century old, were thrown out. Horse-drawn sleighs and buggies were devastated. Historic contents of the barbershop, dentist’s office, general store and post office were destroyed. Furniture from the first county courthouse, built in Burlington in 1886, was ruined. Schoolbooks and records were flooded, and the state’s first iron lung plus antique pump organs from the church were wiped out.

“So much was lost, it’s hard to comprehend it all,” says current director Sue Bergan. “The losses in the church hurt the worst. I sat down on the steps and cried the day they cleared it out.”

Compounding the devastation caused by the flood, the society then lost its long-time administrator and curator, Reverend David Jones, the pastor of the Dakota Baptist Church. While attending a church conference in Boston, he died of a heart attack on September 28, 2011.

“He was an exemplary person, a wonderful man, and a historian,” says Bergan. “He was from Mobile, Alabama, and had quite the cutest Southern accent. He just worked too many hours between the society and the church. It was a terrible blow to us to have to try to reorganize, knowing what he had accomplished and what still had to be accomplished.”

The historical society was facing a historic crisis.

Volunteers — many facing their own flood-related demands at home and work — stepped up, including outside groups such as Lutheran Social Services and students from Minot State University and Trinity Bible College in Ellendale. The Minot post office donated an antique post office that was collecting dust in a corner of its building. The Stenkjaer Lutheran Church in Simcoe, which was closing, donated all its contents to Pioneer Village. An area farmer who has the first schoolhouse in Ward County still on his property is willing to donate the building and all its contents if the society can find the funds to move it. Other volunteers have “adopted” a Model T and a John Deere tractor, promising to restore the antique vehicles on their own. Bergan hopes additional items can be similarly restored.

Staff from the State Historical Society of North Dakota, the State Historic Preservation Office, the American Institute for Conservation, the Heritage Preservation organization, the University of Utah Preservation Library and FEMA also pitched in with their various specializations, helping inventory contents and deciding what could be saved and how it could be restored.

The Ward County Historical Society (WCHS) is a private, non-profit organization – which can be eligible for FEMA Public Assistance aid if they meet certain qualifications. The historical society was an eligible applicant and received funding for repairs to nine of the buildings, debris removal, and restoration of a portion of the collection. FEMA’s team of environmental and historic preservation experts also provided valuable technical assistance to ensure FEMA funding could be used to maximum effect.

Charles Bello, FEMA Historic Preservation Specialist, who worked closely on this project, states that, “We were able to provide guidance and funding to help ensure that key items in the Historical Society’s collection will live on and be enjoyed for generations to come.”

Bergan herself had her own business hanging and removing wallpaper. She had worked with the historical society in January, 2010, when she and her mother re-wallpapered the upstairs apartment in the century-old Samuelson House at Pioneer Village. The flood wiped out a bridge to her own home, and she and her husband had half-hour walks up and down ladders on river banks to get home until a new bridge was built in October. In the meantime, she had volunteered to help at the society, and after Jones’ death she found herself drafted to be the new director.

“It’s going to be all of two years until everything is restored,” she says. “The immediate projects are to reseed the grass and get the outside of the buildings looking nice. I would like to have a couple of buildings open by the time the state fair opens July 20, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not. The log cabin and courthouse, maybe the cook car [a horse-drawn wagon pulled from farm to farm during threshing season], those are the three I’m hoping for, but it’s kind of a far reach.”

“I don’t know how we’ll commemorate the 2011 flood itself,” says Bergan. “Maybe just by winning the battle and reopening. We’re going to have a party then, that’s for sure.”

To learn more about the Ward County Historical Society and how you can be involved in their efforts to preserve the region’s history, visit them online at wchsnd.org.

Last Modified: Monday, 11-Jun-2012 10:00:41

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Making History … And Preserving It

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