All Hands Volunteers Update

Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief and Recovery Fund
August 29, 2017

All Hands and Hearts

Storm Profile & Analysis

Hurricane Harvey may have set a new U.S. rainfall record for any tropical storm or hurricane as it continues to soak Texas and Louisiana. The National Weather Service said, "This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced."
In addition to the storm there have been over a dozen tornadoes so far; total number yet to be determined.
50 TX counties affected and >30,000 people expected to be placed in temporary shelters.
The economic cost and the duration of the recovery are both thought to be astronomical.
Bloomberg News reports that costs could mount to $30 billion when impacts on labor force and energy sector.
Federal emergency officials are saying that the recovery after Harvey will last for years.

All Hands’ Current Status

Staging in San Antonio:
Fielding requests for help from affected communities, including Habitat for Humanity, which has asked us to help them muck and gut their homes
In daily contact with FEMA VAL (Voluntary Agency Liaison), TX VOAD, TX Emergency Management officials; meetings in Corpus Christi today with FEMA VAL and CC Emergency Manager
Monitoring storm and assessing damage; assessments in Corpus Christi today
Rapid Response team is pulling in additional staff from our International Response as we expect this to be our largest response to date
Lining up volunteers - over 1,000 applications received in first 24 hours

Planned Disaster Response Activities

Building local capacity in volunteer management --It is likely that we will set up a VRC (Volunteer Reception Center) in the Corpus Christi area as requested by the CC Emergency Manager today. This may take a few days depending on finding a location and tech support. This may lead to setting up multiple satellite VRCs.
Direct support to disaster survivors-- Once access is granted, we will most likely focus on Fort Bend County. We will be staying in the Houston JCC and with enough volunteers can split our efforts between the Houston area (Harris County) and Fort Bend County. We want to extend to Fort Bend because we have responded there multiple times in the past and have a strong connection to the local community.

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