Salvation Army ready to provide relief for Hurricane Helene

AccuWeather

AccuWeather speaks with Steven Hartsook of the Florida Salvation Army who says his organization is ready to deploy helpers to provide help and relief for those affected by Hurricane Helene.

Transcript

00:00The Salvation Army is ready to help in several states.

00:03Steven Hartzuk is Emergency Disaster Services Director

00:07for the Salvation Army's Florida Division,

00:11a long title there and an important title nonetheless.

00:13The Salvation Army has been preparing for several days.

00:17You're now in Tampa.

00:18How are you guys and how are your team staying safe?

00:22Hi, first, thank you, Melissa and Ariella for having me.

00:25I appreciate it.

00:26So we are staying safe.

00:28We're hunkering down, riding out the storm.

00:30We have our personnel ready to deploy

00:31as soon as it's safe to do so.

00:33We are coordinating, communicating

00:35with emergency management officials

00:37and other partner organizations.

00:38And we're ready to provide service delivery

00:41as soon as we can post landfall to those that are impacted.

00:46Where are you prepared to mobilize this evening

00:50if you plan to do that and then even beyond?

00:53So we have locations all across the state

00:55and each of our local units that are in the areas

00:59where we expect impacts,

01:01they are ready to support their communities

01:03immediately following the storm's path.

01:06We have personnel staged

01:08along with an incident management team

01:10and mobile feeding units in Lakeland right now.

01:14And as soon as first light,

01:17we will begin rolling those resources out.

01:20And we're looking at deploying those resources

01:23to where the most heavily impacted areas

01:26are realized so that we can start serving

01:31those individuals immediately following.

01:34And where are you focused with those greatest needs

01:37when you're talking about the breadth of this storm?

01:40Because it is quite expansive.

01:42Yeah, it is.

01:43And that is one of the things

01:45that we're definitely taking seriously.

01:47We have local Salvation Army units

01:50that are prepared all along the coast

01:51from Port Charlotte northward.

01:54And then we'll be mobilizing,

01:56we have two incident management teams

01:58along with about 23 mobile feeding units

02:01that we'll be mobilizing to go into the area of landfall

02:05and those surrounding areas.

02:07And it's hard to tell exactly where that is,

02:09but as the cone gets more realized and we know the path,

02:13right now we're planning to establish base of operations

02:17in Tallahassee and in Live Oak.

02:20We know those areas will be significantly impacted,

02:23but we also are prepared to serve communities

02:26along the coast that are impacted

02:28with surge and other needs.

02:30And, you know, we can't discount

02:33or write off any tornado concerns.

02:37So we have units across the state

02:39that can support any response needed throughout.

Category

Transcript

Recommended