PHILADELPHIA – FEMA Region III remains committed to supporting disaster response and recovery efforts and we are working closely with our state and local partners to provide assistance to Hurricane Maria evacuees in our region.
From August 24th through October 31st, 109 regional personnel answered more than 6,200 calls from survivors seeking FEMA assistance through FEMA’s Strategic Workforce Enhancement Team (SWAT) program. The SWAT program enables FEMA employees to augment Individuals and Households Program (IHP) Contact Center staff in registration intake when the number of calls exceeds the call center capacity. By volunteering for the SWAT program, Region III personnel were able to decrease call wait times and expedite service to survivors.
Regional personnel were also on hand each day at the Philadelphia Disaster Assistance Services Center (DASC) to register Hurricane Maria survivors who self-evacuated to the Philadelphia area for FEMA assistance. Managed and operated by the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management from October 11th through December 22nd, the DASC provided a centralized location for more than 2,000 survivors to receive assistance from a dozen state, local, federal and nonprofit agencies.
Since early January, regional personnel have met with survivors at ten Traveling Resource & Information Fairs organized by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. These fairs have connected hurricane survivors currently located throughout the Commonwealth to available education, employment, food, health, housing, and transportation resources and assistance.
“In addition to our work here in the region, over 70% of Region III staff, including myself, have deployed to Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, and other locations to support the hurricane response efforts on the ground,” said FEMA Region III Regional Administrator MaryAnn Tierney. “I am deeply proud of Region III’s commitment to those efforts and the level of service our personnel have provided to our state partners and to the survivors who have temporarily relocated to our region.”
There are approximately 200 Hurricane Maria survivor households currently sheltering at hotels and motels within FEMA Region III, the majority of which are located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through FEMA’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA) program. Nearly 4,000 households are currently participating in the TSA program nationwide.
The TSA program allows eligible survivors to shelter in a participating hotel or motel for a limited period of time until they can transition into intermediate and long-term housing. TSA-participating properties are available in Puerto Rico and throughout the continental United States, and the program is only one of a wide range of options available to meet the demand for sheltering for residents of Puerto Rico displaced by the hurricanes.
For more information about assistance to Hurricane Maria survivors in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, visit the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency’s Puerto Rico Relief Resources webpage at http://www.pema.pa.gov/Pages/PR-Relief-Resources.aspx. Information and resources for survivors in the Philadelphia area are available at the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management Hurricane Maria webpage at https://beta.phila.gov/2017-12-22-federal-state-community-help-for-hurricane-maria-disaster-survivors/.
Disaster survivors are encouraged to stay in touch with FEMA through the www.disasterassistance.gov website (English and Spanish available) and via phone at 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to check on their application and for additional resources and assistance.
For up-to-date resources and information about the federal response to Hurricane Maria, visit https://www.fema.gov/hurricane-maria.
FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards. FEMA Region III’s jurisdiction includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Stay informed of FEMA’s activities online: videos and podcasts are available at fema.gov/medialibrary and youtube.com/fema. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/femaregion3.
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