By Hether Scheel | Foundation Relations Officer
Introduction:
Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle and areas of Georgia and Southern Virginia after making landfall on October 10th as a Category 4 hurricane. Hurricane Michael intensified from a tropical storm to a major hurricane in just two days, leaving little time for preparations across Florida and Georgia. The storm unleashed winds topping 155mph and a massive rainfall that submerged neighborhoods, splintered homes and peeled off roofs. Over 1 million households were impacted by the storm, which resulted in 45 fatalities.
Needs Assessment:
Many affected areas were experiencing an affordable housing shortage pre-disaster, and a large number of mobile homes were damaged or destroyed in the storm. For instance, in Panama City, a town of about 37,000, about 22% of people live below the poverty line, according to Census data. Of Bay County’s residents, about 13.5% live in mobile homes. According to the Social Vulnerability Index[1], designed to depict ability of a community to prevent human suffering and financial loss after a disaster, many communities may experience longer response periods and require more continued support to recover. In addition, the Distressed Communities Index[2] depicting economic wellbeing suggests these inland communities may experience negative effects to job growth and a slower rebuild timeline.
Over 11 Habitat affiliates were in the path of the storm with three heavily affected and currently responding. A total of 11 Habitat homes were impacted by Michael, two with minor damage and nine reporting major damage.
The Washington Post’s coverage of the hurricane features Habitat homes in Panama City that fared extremely well in Hurricane Michael, even while neighboring homes and trailers were destroyed[3]. Habitat focuses on building affordable homes, yet resilient homes. In this case, these homes were built well above the code requirements, including the use of hurricane ties, thicker lumber, windstorm plywood and metal roofs.
Emergency Response and Early Recovery
Three Habitat affiliates are responding to housing needs in the wake of Hurricane Michael, along with the support of Habitat for Humanity (HFH) Florida and Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI).
As soon as evacuation orders lifted, affiliates began performing outreach to homeowners, conducting assessments, helped families relocate to temporary housing, and guiding families through the insurance claims and FEMA registration process.
Once damage assessments were complete, affiliates quickly launched debris removal, cleanup, non-food item distributions (NFIs), and emergency repairs of homes. HFHI deployed six Disaster Corps volunteers trained to provide field and technical support to affiliates to assist HFH of Bay County with logistics, needs and damage assessments, family services, volunteer coordination, staff care and strategic planning. They also assisted with the relocation of the office and ReStore to what is now a fully functional temporary space as their office and ReStore were completely destroyed. A Mobile Response Unit, stocked with tools and equipment to accelerate early recovery, was deployed from Alabama to Bay County. Due to the extent of damage in their area, Walton County HFH expects their ongoing construction schedule to be delayed for at least four months until the community is stabilized. Seeing the high level of need in their neighbor’s area as well as their own, they mobilized volunteers and technical support to Bay County HFH and continues to send resources across county lines to serve those in need. Chipola Area HFH also launched a distribution of non-food items through their ReStore and opened up their office as a distribution site to provide household items to survivors.
Working in concert with local actors, affiliates are working with their Long Term Recovery Groups or local Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) partnerships and HFHI is coordinating within National VOAD.
To date, HFH has provided:
[1]https://svi.cdc.gov/Documents/FactSheet/SVIFactSheet.pdf
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