MNVOAD Conference Call Hugo Tornado - Monday, June 2, 2008 (10:30 AM)

Moderator:  Kathy Young                  MN Animal Disaster Coalition/MNVOAD Vice President 

CALLER                                            REPRESENTING
Cheryl Hogg                                          MN Animal Disaster Coalition
Kay Nordeen                                       United Way 211
Marcia Soderholm                                Hennepin County Emergency Management
Angie Trulson-Lindsey                          Stearns- Benton County CERT
Michelle Lakso                                     Centennial Lakes CERT
Mayor Mary Capra                              City of Centerville
Karen Nelson Huss                              MN Department of Human Services
Mary Sjerven                                       Carver Co Public Health
Derry Hansen                                       Adventist Community Services
Deb Davis-Moody                               Adventist Community Services
Anne Harvell                                        MN United Methodist Church Early Disaster Response Team
Jill Fritz                                                 MN Animal Disaster Coalition/MNVOAD Secretary
Bob Makela                                         Police Chief Centennial Lakes PD  

Current Situation – Kathy reported that Dennis Walter is in Hugo right now for the Long-Term Recovery meeting. The info from the meeting will be shared with MN VOAD members on the next conference call.  800 volunteers arrived on Saturday to help, including citizen corps and emergent volunteers, and it went well. Hugo is very grateful and impressed with how well organized the recovery efforts have been. Dennis wants CERT team members to write up a brief synopsis of their team and assignments, including photos of them at work. Kathy would also like photos to include in displays at the VOAD booth. Kathy’s email address is kyoung@ci.plymouth.mn.us. More bad weather is anticipated this week, so please keep an eye on the National Weather Service, especially on Thursday. Kathy suggested that after today’s call, next calls should be Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. The callers agreed. 

Voluntary Agency Reports

Adventist Community Services (Deb Davis): They have been doing donations coordination and distribution. They have been at the firehouse since Thursday, setting up the distribution center and the warehouse of donated goods. They’ve serviced people on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, approx. 60 people or families that have come through. Most have been “Fireflies,” the wives of firefighters, who come on behalf of survivors to make bags of goods to take to the site. Some survivors came, too. They will find out later today where they’re going to be relocated to, which may be the public works building. At the end of next week, they’re looking at possibility of all things that haven’t been donated will be going to local food shelves. The donation bags have cleaning supplies, food, clothes, everything that they have in the center. The community has been gracious in donating items. Centerville Mayor Mary Capra said that they have a new public works site, so their old public works site is available. She offered it to Hugo if they need it for storage for donations. Centreville has a joint powers agreement for public works with the city of Hugo , close to the disaster site. It’s on 20^th Ave S , south of County Road 14. Deb will discuss this offer with Adventist Community Services. 

Mayor Mary Capra of Centerville : They checked out the volunteers, to confirm they were out of the disaster area, and there were only 12 at the end that had to be found to make sure they were cleared from the area at the end of the day. It would have been helpful to have EMT or medical staff at the check out stations, because some volunteers had dehydration issues. Gatorade would have been helpful.  Kathy, MN VOAD vice president, suggested having mounted patrol or medical reserve team members available to help. Mary stressed that it’s important that volunteers be in good health or they put others at risk.. Overall, the volunteer checking in process went very well but the checking out process could have been coordinated a little bit better. Sheryl Hogg suggested that during check-in when wristbands are issued, that all volunteers are specifically told they must check back out at the end of their shift. The volunteers were being supervised by members of the fire department.  There were approximately 50 volunteers to each team supervisor. Derry Hanson of Adventist Community Services asked whether bottled water there at the site was covered up, because it can become contaminated if it stays in sun—the plastic bottles react to the sun and may become toxic.

MN Animal Disaster Coalition (Sheryl Hogg): One cat was found over the weekend, and the family was put in touch with the vet who offered free services. Two Siamese cats area still missing. Sheryl removed the traps set for them because of poor weather, and she is in contact with the families to rearrange trapping. Sheryl now has a form for those who are able to foster pets for tornado victims. Eagle Brook Church in White Bear Lake has a website where people affected by the tornado are posting their needs, at www.eaglebrookchurch.com. They keep identities private. Mary Capra added that Caring for Cats does provide foster care for some animals. Sheryl has notified all area animal control and humane societies that those cats are missing. They did find Honey the Husky Mix. And a long-haired black cat came back to her family’s home and crawled between the mattresses the baby’s crib. The cat is now with the vet, who says she is sore and may have been hit by debris, but she will be okay.

Stearns/Benton County CERT (Angie Trulson-Lindsey): They were requested to bring 10 volunteers to the site for traffic control. Several of their people had recently taken traffic control training. They left St. Cloud at 5 am, and arrived at the site only to find that the Minneapolis CERT, who had been asked to do sign in and registration,  ended up doing traffic control. That left Stearns/Benton County CERT volunteers with nothing to do for a few hours. It was frustrating for them, and disappointing to be requested to do a task, and recruit people for that specific function, then get there and find they can’t do it. Angie said that it’s an important experience for certain volunteers, who may have had physical capability to do traffic control, but not necessarily for others such as carrying heavy bags over uneven terrain. It could have been better organized as to what CERT teams did what. When volunteers are asked to do certain task, then they have negative experience, it turns them off to future volunteering. The 10 people Stearns/Benton County CERT volunteers ended up doing cleanup work. Marcia Soderholm Hennepin County Emergency Management said she recalled that when they were requesting CERT teams to do traffic control, someone mentioned that Minneapolis CERT had experience with traffic control. That may have been a red flag that that more than one group might end up being asked to do that task. 

MN United Methodist Church Early Disaster Response Team (Anne Harvell): They had about 50 people working the week before, Monday to Friday, with small teams. They probably worked with 10-15 families removing debris. Their response is complete as far as cleanup. Mayor Capra of Centerville added that she talked to the local paper about VOAD, and told them, “That’s the story you need to do.” She said that everyone did a great job, from helping pets to the Salvation Army. She did say that an 85-year-old woman in Lino Lakes whose home had been damaged said she felt she was being neglected by recovery efforts. Kathy stressed that nobody was being deliberately ignored and that NECHAMA or other agencies can help with her damaged home if she needs it. She added that the state VOAD can be activated by state duty officer, and it doesn’t have to be declared a state disaster. Kathy will send a VOAD call-out list to Mary, who will take info to Lino Lakes city hall. Angie Trulson-Lindsey of Stearns-Benton County CERT added that she was very impressed with Salvation Army and Red Cross and their presence in the field with food and water distribution. At the three places where her volunteers were, they were tended too very well.

From now on, calls will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Respectfully Submitted, Jill Fritz, MN VOAD Secretary