Support Hurricane Milton Relief for Floridians

Early Focus - Debris Clearance

106 scopes of work have been completed - 19 debris removals, 58 muck & guts, and 29 mold sanitations.  Noting that there is still a big need for mold sanitation, however, the atmosphere is still too humid to proceed with the long list of homes in need of this service in our response queue so essential home repair assessments are on the horizon and we’ll pick up the mold sanitation work when the weather cooperates.

Program Challenges

Building Permits and FEMA - the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a 50/50 rule that says that if the cost of the damage to the home for repairs is more than 50% of the value of the home, theft must either raise the home up or demolish it.  A lot of the homes we have visited are over this designation.  This makes the rebuilding phase - even with essential repairs only - more challenging in terms of finding properties for our recovery queue.  We are currently reaching out to the county to learn more about this process to see if homeowners can appeal or get a new assessment that allows them to do general repairs on the home.

Community Partners

Pasco County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) - this is the agency that invited us to respond in Pasco County, FL when Hurricane Helene took aim at the Gulf Coast followed by Hurricane Milton.  The EOC has served as the primary communications and command center for coordinating the response efforts in the area.  Pasco Brave, a local grassroots nonprofit that provides case and volunteer referrals, and our corporate partner, Lasko, that provided 460 fans and dehumidifiers for use in our response homes, and Christ in Action - a faith-based disaster relief organization and the Pasco County Long Term Recovery Group (LTRG)  for their deep knowledge of the needs of the affected communities and for homeowner referrals.

Impact Numbers

To date, our Hurricane Milton Relief program in Florida has hosted 208 volunteers who have donated 8,300+ hours of labor to have a direct impact on 145 individuals across our initial response scopes of work.  These are just early days numbers.  We expect to contribute so much more in the days, weeks and months to come.

Links:

• Hurricane Milton Relief Program