Blog
June is Immigrant Heritage Month and an excellent time to showcase the diversity that is reflected through our workforce. This week we are featuring Gabriel Adler, who is serving as Legislative Branch Chief in the Office of External Affairs at FEMA Headquarters.
When states began requesting federal support to advance the COVID-19 vaccination mission, FEMA was quick to respond, readily available to aid communities in need. In Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia received FEMA support at two mass vaccination clinics: The Center City Vaccination Center (CCVC), a Type 1 federal pilot Community Vaccination Center, and the Esperanza Community Vaccination Center (ECVC), a Type 2 pilot site in North Philadelphia.
Just three months after Al Dintino and his family moved to North Carolina, Hurricane Florence was at their doorstep. Al Dintino repaired, retrofitted and constructed using modern building codes, with flooding in mind.
The wind was howling outside as we huddled in different sections of the Mobile Vaccination Unit (MVU) attempting to keep warm and protected from the rain, sleet and snow that had draped over our site.
One of the most important aspects of rebuilding after a disaster is building with resiliency in mind. Disaster resiliency in communities and at home begins with building codes.
This year, FEMA commends the Emergency Management Institute on their 70 years of training those who serve our nation. The Civil Defense Staff College opened April 1, 1951 with the intention of teaching civil defense courses during the Cold War. Concerns about a potential attack led the college to relocate the campus from Olney, Maryland to St. Joseph’s campus in Battle Creek, Michigan.
As more and more people get vaccinated and we begin to return to busy schedules, it is important to remember to take time to plan for disasters.
Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), a non-profit organization that organizes values-based education programs and community outreach projects nationwide, has deployed a volunteer response team to support the City of Philadelphia, FEMA, and other government partners at the Center City Vaccination Center (CCVC). This site is equipped to deliver up to 6,000 doses of the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine each day. It is the second federally supported community vaccination center in the nation to benefit from HSS’s assistance.
Since the opening of Philadelphia’s two city-managed and FEMA-supported community vaccination centers (CVC), the City has provided various accommodations to ensure equitable access to community members. This includes the provision of access and functional need considerations, such as wheelchairs and language translators, among them, American Sign Language (ASL) and deaf interpreters.
On Jan. 20, President Biden set the goal of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days. Since then, FEMA has worked with our partners to build 1,732 new community vaccination centers, deploy 9,096 staff across the nation and provide more than $4.75 billion in support of vaccination efforts.
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