CAN responds to the 2008 Summer Storms- Including Tropical Storm Fay

[Darcy Brune]

Hi,

Many you may have already received this message from other sources,
but I wanted to be sure each of you has the announcement for the new
CAN portal. If you have the time to share this announcement with your
organization we would very much appreciate the connections! If you
need additional information or have questions please contact me
(Da...@can.org or 202-391-9578) or send an email to sup...@can.org.


Greetings from the Coordinated Assistance Network!

The CAN Steering Committee authorized the activation of CAN to support
the response and recovery efforts for multiple summer storms.

https://2008summerstorms.communityos.org/cms/ is available for all
organizations involved in sharing information, calendar events by
state, resource sharing among agencies and case management activities
related to the summer storms.

Communities across Florida are recovering from Tropical Storm Fay
which struck the state a record four times with heavy rains and high
winds. A number of areas in the central and southern parts of the
state received more than 25 inches. In addition to extensive property
damage, Fay caused at least 13 deaths. In Texas, faith and community-
based organizations are working to assist residents in a multi-county
area affected by Dolly, which made landfall July 23 as a Category 2
hurricane with winds of 100 mph. The storm caused damages estimated at
upwards of $750 million. Among the hardest hit areas were the
colonias, economically depressed communities in the region. President
Bush has declared 18 counties in Texas as disaster areas and 35,000
registrations for individual assistance have been received. The storm
also wiped out nearly the entire cotton crop in the lower Rio Grande
Valley, Citrus and corn crops were also heavily damaged. The impact
of Hurricane Gustav on the Gulf Coast has also been added as it made
landfall on Labor Day.

The Summer Storms portal includes the following disasters: (more FEMA
declared disasters from this summer will be added next week)

Texas Disasters:

FEMA 1780 and ARC DR 206-09 TS Dolly South TX Hurricane

ARC DR 101-09 Sherman TX

ARC DR 144-09 TX Flood

ARC DR 083-09 TX Tropical Storm Edouard

Florida Disasters:

FEMA 1785 and ARC DR 117-09 TS Fay FL

Gustav States:

FEMA 1786 ARC DR 010-09

The portal offers a secure web based suite of tools to share
information, client and resource data among the many agencies involved
in the response and recovery efforts. As a user driven system with
over 325 participating agencies and their local affiliates, this is an
especially opportune time to revisit the components of the system that
so many of you have used before. Many new components have been added
to CAN that we hope you will find very helpful as you respond to these
summer disasters.

Some of the recent technology available to you include:
* A national calendar to post meetings, conference calls and training
opportunities.
* A single site for agencies to share information across states,
counties and parishes.
* Regular trainings offered on line via web-ex technology.

* Comprehensive user support.

* Disaster Library of best practices and sample documents.
* Systemic opportunities for feedback on future enhancements to the
system.
* Document posting and file attachment capabilities on the 2008 Summer
Storms portal.

Work is under way with the FEMA VAL's and local information and
referral agencies through 211's to populate the resource directory to
share the resources which they have identified with recovery and VOAD
groups. We also will work closely with the LTRC's and participating
agencies to share these tools at the local level.

A suite of tools is ready for you at www.can.org. Please join us!

Best wishes,
Darcy Brune
Da...@can.org
202-391-9578
CAN.org