The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that federal disaster aid has been made available to the State of South Dakota to supplement state, local and tribal recovery efforts in the area affected by a severe winter storm, snowstorm, and flooding during the period of October 3-16, 2013.
Federal funding is available for Disaster Unemployment Assistance for affected individuals in Butte, Corson, Custer, Dewey, Fall River, Haakon, Harding, Jackson, Lawrence, Meade, Pennington, Perkins, Shannon, and Ziebach counties and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of the Cheyenne River Reservation within Dewey and Ziebach counties and the Oglala Sioux Tribe within Jackson and Shannon counties.
The President’s action makes federal funding available to state and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe winter storm, snowstorm, and flooding in Butte, Corson, Custer, Dewey, Fall River, Haakon, Harding, Jackson, Lawrence, Meade, Pennington, Perkins, Shannon, and Ziebach counties and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of the Cheyenne River Reservation within Dewey and Ziebach counties and the Oglala Sioux Tribe within Jackson and Shannon counties.
In addition, federal funding is available to the state and eligible local governments on a cost-sharing basis for snow assistance for a continuous 48 hour period during or proximate to the incident period in Butte, Custer, Fall River, Lawrence, Meade, and Pennington counties.
Finally, federal funding is available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures for all counties and Tribes within the state.
Gary R. Stanley has been named as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area. Stanley said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the state and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.
Avera simulates disaster evacuation options
In case of an emergency, employees at Avera St. Luke’s have two patient transportation devices available to aid in the evacuation of the hospital.
Employees at Avera St. Luke’s in Aberdeen walked through the process of evacuating the hospital in the case of structural damage as a result of a tornado.
During the evacuation, employees used a Stryker evacuation slide and an evacuation stair chair. The Stryker is a heavy-duty cardboard device that straps the patient in place while they are lying flat and allows two people to transport the person down the stairs. Information on the device indicates it can carry an individual who weighs up to 500 pounds. The stair chair has a track on the back that allows emergency personnel to lean the chair backwards and glide down the stairs.
While disaster drills are organized annually, evacuation coordinator Chris Larson said the hospital felt this simulation was timely with the addition of new devices at the hospital.
“We thought it would be a good time,” she said.
Larson said the Stryker slides were purchased about three years ago through the use of federal Emergency Preparedness grant funds. They’re located at three designated exits and are designed to be discarded after use in a disaster situation.
For the purpose of the drill, employees walked through the procedure that would be followed if a storm came through the area: First, staging patients in the hallway then following evacuation protocol for those patients who were unable to walk unassisted.
KC DeBoer, Avera vice president, said, in a typical disaster situation, personnel would first look at moving patients from one part of the hospital to another, but, in this situation, patients needed to be moved to a separate location.
“The key in any disaster is that staff will come here first to do what they can to help,” DeBoer said.
While there’s a calling tree in place to notify essential personnel when there’s a disaster, DeBoer said, if there was a disaster like the tornado that hit Joplin, Mo., in 2011, employees would simply know they needed to respond.
DeBoer said Thursday’s simulation was unique because most disaster drills simulate a situation where an emergency has happened off-site that results in a mass-casualty situation at the hospital. In this case, he said, the simulated disaster happened at the hospital.
Home destroyed in a disaster? Video footage of contents can help victims, insurers
Losing a home to a fire is always a traumatic, but 30 minutes of video taken with a cellphone can prevent a lot of additional and unnecessary stress, said Eric Pederson of Gerharter Insurance.
Pederson, a former claims adjuster for State Farm and Farmer’s Union, said people need to know what they own if they want to be reimbursed by insurance when disaster strikes.
But Pederson has seen firsthand how hard it is for people who just lost their home to remember how much stuff they’ve acquired over the years.
“They are going through the trauma of the fire loss, they have so much on their mind and now they are trying to remember every little thing that they lost … it’s almost impossible,” Pederson said.
Video evidence adds instant credibility to any claim and makes it much easier for the claims adjuster to help a homeowner put their life back together after a fire, flood, tornado or other disaster.
Residents don’t need to to write down every piece of property they own to make a record, Pederson said. All they need to do is open their closets and drawers, shoot some video of the stuff in their home, then store it someplace where it can be accessed outside the home, such as an email, a USB flash drive, or another family member’s home.
“After a fire, it’s all gone, it’s all ash. You’re likely to forget certain things you owned, and you are doing yourself a disservice,” Pederson said. “In this day and age, there is no excuse not to run around your home and shoot some video clips.”
Pederson suggested taking a video clip of each room because it doesn’t cut off sections of an area the way a photo does.
Even if the video doesn’t record everything, it can help a person remember what they’ve bought, Pederson said. For example a video of a DVD collection taken six months ago can help people remember what they bought over the past six months, he said.
Bob Hilgemann, owner of Hilgemann Insurance Agency, said that when it comes to homeowners’ insurance, getting the value of the home itself is pretty straightforward, but figuring out how much stuff is inside is a lot tougher.
“I walk through my living room and see the stuff on my wall everyday,” Hilgemann said. “But if I had just gone through a devastating fire loss, could I tell you exactly what was on my wall? Heck no.”
Good communication between an adjuster and the policy-holder is very important after a fire, Hilgemann said.
“The customer shouldn’t look at the adjuster as an adversary,” he said. “They should look at them as someone who is going to help them get their life back together.”
People almost always underestimate how much silverware they accumulated, how many video games they owned or how many pairs of shoes, suits or jeans were in their closet, Pederson said. That’s why record keeping is so valuable.
Records are useful for people who might have an unusually expensive item, or collection of items, relative to their home’s value, said Scott Grebner, agent with Gerharter Insurance.
In one instance, Grebner was doing an inspection of one person’s home and found out that person had accumulated a DVD collection worth about $30,000. It would have been very difficult to figure out that the collection was so extensive without video or photographic evidence.
No matter what policy a person has, certain items, such as family scrapbooks and old photographs, are simply irreplaceable, Pederson said.
In the aftermath of a fire, the first items victims ask about are yearbooks, heirlooms and other personal items, Aberdeen Fire and Rescue Chief Kevin VanMeter said.
VanMeter said he recommends storing those items in a fire safe for added protection. But Pederson said that if a fire reaches a certain temperature, even a fire safe can be destroyed. And many people want to use their family photographs to decorate their home, he said.
A scanner can be used to preserve albums, photos, diplomas on a computer or USB flash drive somewhere else, he said.
Pederson admits it’s not a perfect replacement for the original, but it’s better than nothing at all.
Each homeowners’ insurance policy offers a different level of protection for personal property lost in a fire. People should check their individual policy with their insurance agent, Pederson said.
Reference: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/28/president-obama-signs-south-dakota-disaster-declaration