Travis County Commissioners Court
September 30, 2008
Item 5
Number 5 is to consider and take appropriate action on assistance from Travis County and residents to persons affected by hurricane ike, including: 1. Update from emergency services and health and human services departments and law enforcement officers and constables in response to hurricane and the need for assistance; and 2. Other related issues. We will bring the cdbg item up next.
>> good morning, sherri flemming executive manager for health and human services and veterans service. Our update is pretty much the same as last week with a few changes. Basically we are continuing to work with our partners in the community to ensure that sufficient services are available and that the information is available to evacuee families who remain in our communities. Over the last week the most consistent activity was the fema registration, the ultimate assigning of hotel rooms to those residents who still were not able to return to their homes in the gulf coast area. Those persons included in your backup is a list of how many persons were sent out to various hotels in our community. What the department is working on now alongside the city of Austin and some of the agency that's work directly in disaster relief is a survey process whereby folks who we have their information have received the fema hotel vouchers will be contacted to make sure that they have access, transportation, to appropriate resources that they might need. We had a really strong -- we are very fortunate to have some graduate students from the u.t. School of social work, some folks from Austin Travis County mhmr and voad, the voluntary organizations active in disaster who have stepped up to make these phone calls to -- to these residents and make sure they have appropriate connections to service. In terms of our programs we asked you several weeks ago to waive certain county policies so that we would be able to assist them, assist person who's have evacuate due to the storm. We did give you an updated report. Our demand for these services has dropped up a little bit, we believe that's attributed to the fact that the state has provided the residents from the galveston area access to food stamps. That waiver is in effect until the end of October. We will continue our partnership with the capital area food bank until that time. We did our waiver to or threw October 31st.
>> yes. Through October 31st.
>> pete baldwin, Travis County emergency services. Really there's not a whole lot to report from our end, emergency services side of the highways. Basically what we're doing -- of the house. Basically what we're doing is awaiting the initial meeting with fema to get our requirements and ground rules laid out as far as reimbursements go. We will make sure we get all expenses gathered in. We are in the process of trying to gather up, do an action report on this whole last activation to see how we may be able to improve, everything else. Bottom line is we still have about 719 folks here in the Austin area in scattered into -- throughout about 30 to 31 hotels and so that's what sherri was talking about trying to make sure that we keep in touch with them, so when opportunities arise or if we can determine where they need to be then we can try to assist them to get there. So -- so that's really about it from the emergency services side.
>> shall we have it back on next week?
>> I think pete and I agreed there's no need to continue this item. If we have issues that arise we will let the court know as quickly as possible.
>> okay. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 3:05 AM