Services

Recovery, Rebuild and Unmet Needs

Emmons County Flood Services

Kristen Vetter

Friday June 30, 2009

1. The initial phase of clean-up is near complete for homes. Operation Blessing, Samaritan’s Purse and Nechama have moved to other disaster areas. The community is in awe of their self-less contributions and cannot thank them enough for their supervision of clean-up and feeding, housing and generally handling volunteers. In addition to selfless giving was the sandbag removal effort handled by Mr. Imdieke and Mr. Bjornson and the City of Linton. It went off without a hitch! There is still cleanup work to be done such as Seaman Park, creek beds behind homes and general yard clean up. If you know of flood clean up that needs to be done within the city limits that we may not already know about, please call Bob Job at city hall to place a work order. If you are willing to get a group together to help with these efforts please call, Kristen Vetter at 701-254-4811.

2. The next phase, ‘Re-build’, is in the process of being organized but will not get underway for some weeks, or even next month, until proper drying of homes has occurred. Estimators have been in Linton over the past few weeks to estimate home damage. Volunteers are being coordinated through Lutheran Disaster Response at 1-800-366-9841. The estimates of homes, unmet needs case workers, and the unmet needs committee will all come together in early July to put together a rebuild plan of homes affected. For more information on donating toward the re-build effort, please, call Kristen at the NDSU Extension office at 701-254-4811.

3. The Emmons County Commissioners (Marcy Ohlhauser – Emmons County Auditor) have adopted a draft for a county-wide ‘Unmet needs Committee’ at their April 7^th meeting. The Emmons County Ministerial Association (Chair – Pastor Cori Weisenan) has also adopted this draft. Also in their meeting, the Ministerial dedicated the ‘Peace Lutheran church’ of Linton (Rev. Henkelman) to be the fiscal agent. The Emmons County Ministerial will also disseminate the money fairly, equitably and anonymously according to a point system determining needs, family resources and abilities to residents of Emmons County who have an unmet need. RAFT (Resources Agencies Flood Team) will be accepting all completed applications to begin case work for each Emmons County resident. A Finance sub-committee has been formed and is soliciting corporations that serve Emmons County residents. However, donations are still being accepted and are encouraged. Peace Lutheran Church has been dedicated as the fiscal agent. All donations are 100 % tax deductible. No administrative fees will be taken out of the fund. You can send your donation to the unmet needs committee by submitting a check to:

Emmons County Flood Relief

BNC National Bank – Linton Branch

PO Box 910

Linton, ND 58552

4. PICTURES of the FLOOD may be viewed on our Facebook page: ‘Emmons Flood’.

5. It’s green again. The water has receded. But we cannot let our commitment to recovery recede. There is yet plenty of need to meet.

Or register online: www.disasterassistance.gov