Home for the Holidays

Well, it has been a while since I posted on here.  I am back from Denver.  After about 2 months there, it was back home to the DC area.  This was nice because we got to spend the holidays with our families.  As of the first of the year, we are back on constant standby for any event that may occur.

Mile High Disaster

On September 11, Colorado had "historic" flooding north of the Denver area.  While the West IMAT team took the initial response, they had been in Denver for 40+ days.  FEMA Leadership thought it would be nice to switch things up, so they switched teams!  We arrived in Denver yesterday and are set to be here 30 to 60 days.  I believe they plan to have us close down the JFO (Joint Field Office) here when we leave.  If not, we could play tag again and switch out once again.  Today I got to head up to the flood area to scope out a new office location as well as visit an existing one.  I hope to get into some more of the damage zone again.

And we are home again

After showing up at the Florida State EOC this morning, Karen was declared officially not a threat and we were told to go right home.  So back to the hotel, book flights, pack, and get to the airport.  And 12 hours later, we are all back in DC.  Hence the grind.  Let's hope something else picks up soon so we can head out again.  Here's a picture from lunch today, looking for Karen.  I call it good situational awareness!

Karen... you fickle woman.... err, storm

Well, we all arrived in Florida last night.  TS Karen was still moving north but weakening ever so slightly.  This morning our whole team went to the Florida State Emergency Operations Center.  We worked out of their offices today as we watched the storm continue to weaken and even stall almost as it was getting closer.  At this point, it will not hit our area here now until Monday, or beyond.  And by then, it may be down to just a remnant.  But we are here, ready to serve the people of the State of Florida if and when they need us.  Stay tuned!

Florida bound!

Well, we just got our first official deployment!  We are off to Florida in anticipation of Tropical Storm Karen.  More to come soon!!

Headed home

Well, it's been a couple of more weeks here. First we headed from Jefferson City to Kansas City. After a couple days of meetings there and then off to Wichita. There we spent a couple days looking for office space for a field office. The hope was that we would be setting up that office this week. However the state delayed some of their paperwork so nothing will be approved until after the first of the month. So we boarded our plane and came back to DC.  The West coast team was called to Colorado, so we are up next for any event anywhere.

Still in Missouri

We are moving into week 3 here at the JFO in Jefferson City.  So far the IT work has been good.  I have been learning a ton about the processes and methods they follow here.  I have gotten a few things signed off on but will hopefully get a lot more this week.  Tuesday I am going to be teaching two iPad classes, similar to the ones I taught down in Anniston.  Wednesday I am hoping to attend the C&G Staff meeting, as that is another one of my checks.  And Friday I am teaching a Weather Basics for FEMA employees.  I put this together for the IMAT Academy but we never had time to get to it.  So I get to test run the class here and see how it goes!