Dear Friends,
Here in South Carolina, we are sincerely grateful for the
outpouring of care and support that is coming our way from all over the United
States. We need your help in a key matter. We are being inundated with
requests from outside the state to come in and work. Here is the information
that needs to be shared with ERT coordinators, Disaster Response Coordinators,
and UMVIM Coordinators in your annual conference.
1. We are still in the emergency stage of this disaster.
Roads are closed, bridges are down, and flooding is still unpredictable. Access
is limited in affected areas. At the present time, we are adequately staffed
through South Carolina's excellent ERTs.
2. We are in the process of establishing our systems for
volunteer management and coordination. This includes identifying host churches
for teams and determining how teams coming in can most efficiently be deployed.
We need your patience.
3. By the end of the week, we will have our disaster hotline
set up so that teams who want to come can be logged in our system and contacted
when we are ready for them. Be watching the Disaster Recovery page on our
website. I will also email you as soon as this is up and running.
4. Please communicate with your people not to come to South
Carolina until invited, not to call churches in Columbia to try to get in, and
not to bring donations that have not been requested.
Gregg Forrester with UMCOR estimates that our recovery period
could last as long as 3 years. There will be much work to do in the coming
weeks, months and years and ample opportunity to make a difference in the lives
of people after the cameras have shifted their focus elsewhere. We need every
single team that wants to come. We just don't need them this weekend!
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