June 17, 2011

ELGIN, IL – A new response site for Children's Disaster Services (CDS) is Springfield, Mass., which was hit by a tornado on June 2. A team of five CDS volunteers began work there late last week in response to a call from the American Red Cross.

In Springfield, the CDS team is working in the Mass Mutual shelter – a multi purpose arena and convention center. "The center is working well," reports CDS associate director Judy Bezon.

The Springfield Tornado has been "declared," Bezon says, "which means the President has identified it as a major disaster area, which in turn makes federal resources available to those whose homes have been destroyed." She expects FEMA to open eight Disaster Recovery Centers (DRCs) where people come to apply for aid. "We have had preliminary talks with the FEMA Voluntary Agency Liaisons about setting up child care centers in some of their DRCs," she adds.

Meanwhile, CDS volunteers have completed a project caring for children of families living in shelters in Joplin, Mo. Previously this spring, CDS also served in Tuscaloosa, Ala., after tornado destruction there in April.

The last CDS volunteers left Joplin yesterday. A total of 28 CDS volunteers have worked there since the tornado. The response lasted well past the standard time limit of two weeks for CDS volunteers, so new volunteers were rotated in while others left after completing their two weeks.

"The last few days, CDS volunteers who lived locally drove in to help us – they couldn't stay an entire week," Bezon reports. "The Red Cross Case Workers worked hard to find places for the last people in the shelter to live. Generally we leave a few days before the shelter closes, as numbers of children are dwindling."

Bezon herself worked in Joplin up until last week as part of a Critical Response Childcare team that was deployed because of the high number of fatalities in Joplin. That specially trained team was "very very needed in the shelters," she says. Some of the children in the Joplin shelters required intensive caregiving.

The CDS volunteers in Joplin handled an especially stressful situation very well, Bezon says gratefully. "It was a hardship because the volunteers were living in the shelters, and the work was so difficult. The sheer number of children and the behavioral needs were very intense."

The destruction in the area of Joplin hit by the tornado is "just unbelievable," in Bezon's words. The path of the tornado was a mile wide and six miles long, and passed through low and middle income areas. "Everything in its path was completely flattened," she says. "It looks barren in every way."

One reason the shelters in Joplin had been needed for longer than usual was that damaged homes continued to be condemned and demolished, forcing families to find other places to live when all available housing and hotels were already full, Bezon explains. Many residents "doubled up" by sharing their homes with friends. The people left in the shelters were those without the connections or the money to find other places to live.

In other disaster relief news, Brethren Disaster Ministries has just learned that it will receive a grant for $52,500 from the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee for its home rebuilding project in the Nashville area.

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to continuing the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its faith in community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2008. It counts some 123,000 members across the United States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Nigeria, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and India.

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service