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During a disaster we rely heavily
on our private nonprofits for a
multitude of things.
Once we determine that they can
be a potential eligible applicant we look at it as whether they're going
to be a critical or non-critical facility. We break that down. If it's a critical
facility such as a school or a hospital something of that nature then they're
eligible for category A through G.
In our case we have a snow disaster as well
so they're also eligible for the 48 hours of consecutive snow removal.
If it's a non-critical pnp
then they'll be eligible for
the category A and the category B
if they have any kind of facility or infrastructure damage then that
will fall under the realms of the SBA.
Well we represent all of the hospitals
in the District of Columbia on their advocacy work and their
emergency response work.
And our organization served as a facilitator for all the hopsitals
and an intermediary between all of the hospitals and the local
District of Columbia government
and FEMA to help the hospitals
process their claims in order
to get reimbursed for the funding
that the federal law allows. The first
thing I wanted to do was to make
sure that our hospitals' staff could
get to work, and that the suppliers
could get to the hospitals with whatever
deliveries they had to make sure that
our patients were not going to be
compromised by the disaster.
So I worked with the District
of Columbia government to make sure
that all of their access routes
were clear so that our people and
the delivery trucks could get
to the hospitals.
Private nonprofits, there's a lot
out there, but one of the most prominent
that maybe some people don't realize
is your rural electric co-ops which provide power and that type of thing, and during
a snow or ice storm or hurricane they are affected greatly. And also too they
are a driving force to help the
Commonwealth to get a disaster because
they play an important part in that.
It's things that we couldn't do and
services that couldn't be provided
if we didn't have support of
the nonprofit community.
So we always work in close
partnership either through the VOAD,
the Citizen Corps Council or
whatever means we have for reaching
out to our nonprofit partners
we always make it a point to do so.