John McCarthy
WALLA WALLA, Washington – Volunteers from the Walla Walla District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continue to work to bring relief to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico after a brutal hurricane season left the islands in shambles.
The volunteers came as a response to Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) requests for support, according to district emergency management officials.
Eight district volunteers are currently deployed in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, supporting FEMA missions that provide emergency, temporary power, manage storm debris disposal, assess damaged critical infrastructure, provide temporary housing and roofing, restore power grid capability and provide logistics-management services for FEMA’s various planning and response teams (PRTs). About 90 FEMA-requested hurricane-related deployment positions, nicknamed “taskers,” have been filled by district volunteers since the end of August.
Most deployments are originally scheduled to last about 30 days, according to Richard Cannon, the district’s emergency management deployment coordinator. However, he noted more than a dozen employees have volunteered to extend their deployments to about 60 days. In addition to having the technical knowledge and skills needed for a specific deployment position, employee-volunteers must have their supervisor’s permission to deploy, meet a variety of FEMA and Corps training requirements, and complete a medical screening to be approved to go.
