AccuWeather speaks with Steven Hartsook of the Florida Salvation Army who says his organization is ready to deploy helpers to provide help and relief for those affected by Hurricane Helene.
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00:00The Salvation Army is ready to help in several states.
00:03Steven Hartzuk is Emergency Disaster Services Director
00:07for the Salvation Army's Florida Division,
00:11a long title there and an important title nonetheless.
00:13The Salvation Army has been preparing for several days.
00:17You're now in Tampa.
00:18How are you guys and how are your team staying safe?
00:22Hi, first, thank you, Melissa and Ariella for having me.
00:25I appreciate it.
00:26So we are staying safe.
00:28We're hunkering down, riding out the storm.
00:30We have our personnel ready to deploy
00:31as soon as it's safe to do so.
00:33We are coordinating, communicating
00:35with emergency management officials
00:37and other partner organizations.
00:38And we're ready to provide service delivery
00:41as soon as we can post landfall to those that are impacted.
00:46Where are you prepared to mobilize this evening
00:50if you plan to do that and then even beyond?
00:53So we have locations all across the state
00:55and each of our local units that are in the areas
00:59where we expect impacts,
01:01they are ready to support their communities
01:03immediately following the storm's path.
01:06We have personnel staged
01:08along with an incident management team
01:10and mobile feeding units in Lakeland right now.
01:14And as soon as first light,
01:17we will begin rolling those resources out.
01:20And we're looking at deploying those resources
01:23to where the most heavily impacted areas
01:26are realized so that we can start serving
01:31those individuals immediately following.
01:34And where are you focused with those greatest needs
01:37when you're talking about the breadth of this storm?
01:40Because it is quite expansive.
01:42Yeah, it is.
01:43And that is one of the things
01:45that we're definitely taking seriously.
01:47We have local Salvation Army units
01:50that are prepared all along the coast
01:51from Port Charlotte northward.
01:54And then we'll be mobilizing,
01:56we have two incident management teams
01:58along with about 23 mobile feeding units
02:01that we'll be mobilizing to go into the area of landfall
02:05and those surrounding areas.
02:07And it's hard to tell exactly where that is,
02:09but as the cone gets more realized and we know the path,
02:13right now we're planning to establish base of operations
02:17in Tallahassee and in Live Oak.
02:20We know those areas will be significantly impacted,
02:23but we also are prepared to serve communities
02:26along the coast that are impacted
02:28with surge and other needs.
02:30And, you know, we can't discount
02:33or write off any tornado concerns.
02:37So we have units across the state
02:39that can support any response needed throughout.