By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Tuesday October 11, 2016, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (R) announced that Alabama is sending additional state and county personnel to multiple states to assist with Hurricane Matthew response efforts.
Gov. Bentley said, “As part of our Emergency Management Assistance Compact with surrounding states we are sending additional personnel to assist with the ongoing recovery efforts following Hurricane Matthew.”
Governor Bentley said, “We are glad to help in any way we can. During the April 2011 storms, Alabama received assistance from several states and now we are honored to return the favor. When disaster strikes the help of others is invaluable in the response and recovery phase.”
On Monday, five state EMA personnel and four county EMA personnel were deployed to South Carolina to assist with coordinating recovery efforts to include debris removal, managing damage assessment teams, planning, organizing and tracking state-county EMAC requests, as well as preliminary damage assessments and joint damage assessments.
Alabama EMA is also deploying staff to Georgia to assist in the Joint Information Center. Our state’s EMA also deployed a team of six in Florida last week. They have completed their mission.
All of the personnel deployed this week are scheduled to return in two to three weeks.
Alabama has a long history of hurricanes doing a lot of damage in the state although recently no named storms have made landfall here. Hurricane Matthew could have been a devastating storm if it had come inland in Florida as a category four storm but fortunately the eye of the storm stayed in the Atlantic. Flooding still had a tremendous impact on a number of coastal communities, particularly in North Carolina, where a lot of flooding has occurred.
Art Faulkner is the Director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. He was appointed by Gov. Bentley in 2011.
