The meeting place is not solidified yet for Saturday. I have a location at a downtown church, but it isn't optimal and I'm looking for a better option still tomorrow. We will meet at 9:00 Saturday, but I'll have to get you the definite address via email tomorrow.
I spent the day with Linn Ash, the newly anointed EMA Volunteer Coordinator and Tim Flock, the directory for Crawford County. You'll like them, they are the kind of people we've grown to respect for their leadership in disasters.
We spent the day plotting how we were going to prioritize work requests and validate they are ready for volunteers. We also connected with the Red Cross and Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services. We talked to a few churches, checked out a few homes, and got the lay of the land.
Tomorrow we are having a meeting of church, civic, service organization, and other leaders in the area to ask them to mobilize their constituencies to volunteer in their community. We will be surveying the first jobs to be handed out on Saturday and solidifying a base of operations. Without taking on too much, we are going to check on other counties' progress in volunteer cleanup management and find a way to help them get going as well.
Volunteers from around the region are needed in the effected area. While flood water has receded in Bucyrus, Findlay still has high water and as I write this, more than an inch of rain is predicted from storms entering the area now.
Some residents are cleaning out their homes and a few have insurance to cover it, but there will be many who need our assistance.
The tote board in the Crawford County EMA office of residences damaged looked like this by the end of the day:
Affected - 255 some damage
Minor - 542 mostly flooded basements, water heaters, and furnaces
Major - 179 flood damage in the first floor of the house
Destroyed - 59 structurally unsound
Total - 1032
More homes collapsed today as water was pumped out of basements and the pressure outside the walls caved them in. Prayers for these families and all the others left homeless please.
The Major and Destroyed homes are 10% of the residences in this relatively small town. Some other statistics. ODJFS estimates 200-300 homes in the county are unlivable, 500 families or 3000 individuals are homeless and staying with relatives. that's 7% of the county's population. They also note that the storm victims are disproportionately elderly and poor. The Sandusky River crested 17 1/2 feet above average making this a 100 year flood event. The water hasn't been recorded that high since 1912.
My phone is Cingular/AT&T and does not work within 5 miles of Bucyrus... So if you don't get an answer, please contact Linn Ash at 419-561-1110. I'm hoping to have a Verizon phone up tomorrow to use while I'm up there. Special thanks to Mitchell Ratalczak at the Verizon Wireless store in Westerville (614-563-0863) for his assistance. Give him some business if you would!
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