FLORIDA HURRICANE RELIEF UPDATE JANUARY 2021
TOTAL IMPACT TO DATE
842 593
LIVES IMPACTED VOLUNTEERS
7,372
VOLUNTEER DAYS
322
JOBS COMPLETED
Current Activities Our team completed their seventh high-quality, interior home repair just before the holidays; a solid achievement given the delays caused by COVID-19 quarantine periods and a reduced team. Our first cohort of DM12 volunteers departed the program on December 11. Due to COVID-19 concerns and reduced interest, we’ll continue operations using an all-staff model for now. We’re pursuing an application for support from AmeriCorps NCCC teams. Our focus remains the nonstructural interior work in homes affected by Hurricane Michael and we’re working closely with the North Florida Inland Long Term Recovery Group (NFLTRG) and United Methodist Committee of Relief (UMCOR) to redefine our scope of work based on our current reduced capacity.
Community Stories Michael has lived in the local area, and his current home, for a long time. He is well known in the neighborhood for being incredibly kind. He’s often sharing his property; he’s currently allowing friends to park their mobile home on his land as they have nowhere else to go. Michael’s roof was destroyed during Hurricane Michael, causing significant damage to two bedrooms inside. After the roof was repaired by the NFLTRG, our team successfully completed extensive bedroom repairs, enabling Michael to finally use these rooms again, safe in the knowledge that they won’t pose any health or safety risks. Photos: (left) Before and after of one of the bedrooms in Michael’s house that our team repaired.
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Disaster Profile On October 10, 2018 Hurricane Michael slammed into Mexico Beach, Florida as a Category 5 storm with maximum sustained wind speeds of 160 mph. With record-breaking wind speeds, Michael was both the strongest storm to make landfall in the continental US (since Hurricane Andrew in 1992) and to ever hit the Florida Panhandle. Tracking across the Southeastern United States, winds plunged 1.4 million residents into complete darkness in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas. Communities across the region were devastated, with full towns in the Panhandle demolished beyond recognition.
Our Work Thanks to the support of our partners, donors, local community and volunteers from all over the world, we have been cultivating a powerful impact in Florida since October 2018. Our first program was in Bay County, where we began with response efforts (chainsawing, debris removal and residential flood cleanup) before officially transitioning to a recovery program from June 2019 to January 2020 when we carried out muck and guts, mold sanitation and rebuild work on affected homes. In October 2020, we moved this work into Jackson County, where we'll continue serving the long-term repair needs through mid-April.
About All Hands and Hearts We effectively and efficiently address the immediate and long-term needs of communities impacted by natural disasters. We communicate directly with local leaders and community members and then deploy our unique model of engaging volunteers to enable direct impact, helping to build safer, more resilient schools, homes and infrastructure. We have earned a 4-star rating by Charity Navigator for the seventh year in a row. This year only seven percent of rated non-profits received this distinction for financial and operational efficiency.
Our Partners
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