Hurricane Sandy destroys World Vision Relief Supplies

Disaster Response Teams face unexpected challenges

•         World Vision staff return to evacuated NYC site to find three to four feet high flood waters inside and hundreds of damaged relief supplies
•         Assessment teams mobilize from NY and DC to determine the full extent of Sandy’s damage and identify hardest hit areas along East Coast
 
NEW YORK (October 30, 2012) — As hundreds of thousands of East Coast residents continue to seek shelter from Hurricane Sandy, the Christian humanitarian relief organisation World Vision is facing unique challenges to respond to hardest hit survivors. On Monday, World Vision’s Domestic Disaster Response team was forced to evacuate its New York site based in the Bronx as flood waters from the East River crept closer to the edge of the facility. By Tuesday, teams returned to the site to find significant flood damage including three to four feet of water within the building and hundreds of relief supplies damaged from this week’s storm.
 
"Honestly it brought tears to my eyes when I saw it,” said Tim Reeve, World Vision's Bronx storehouse manager, who was among the first to survey this damage today.
 
Hundreds of emergency food and hygiene kits for storm survivors were destroyed, and several delivery trucks were flooded.
 
“The irony of this situation is just painful,” said spokesperson Mindy Mizell. “These supplies were meant to help those who have lost power and are dealing with their own flooded homes. And now they’re soaked.”
 
Fortunately, World Vision has warehouses throughout the U.S. and additional pre-positioned supplies from World Vision's Domestic Disaster Headquarters in Dallas are en route. For now, World Vision teams are in New York and Washington D.C. to assess the extent of the damage in under-reported and more impoverished communities and determine how best to help.

View video and pictures of World Vision staff helping pump flood waters out of the Bronx facility.