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Teams go door-to-door to collect data for FEMA
BY HALEY LENA HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
As part of the tornado aftermath in Highlands Ranch, the Douglas County Sheri s and O ce of Emergency Management personnel have been working together to conduct door-to-door damage assessments.
After a major disaster, FEMAFederal Emergency Management Agency - asks for two kinds of damage assessments, according to Debrah Schnackenberg, director of the O ce of Emergency Management in Douglas County.
An initial damage assessment is made so FEMA can determine whether the county quali es for a declaration of disaster.
“ e reason we want that is because that then opens up a grant process that helps to reimburse the county and other public agencies and perhaps homeowners,” said Schnackenberg.
Teams have been conducting individual assessments throughout neighborhoods in order to give the information to FEMA so they can help residents through grant funding that covers areas not covered by insurance.
“I say uninsured because FEMA obviously expects that homeowners have homeowners insurance,” said
Schnackenberg. “And that’s the rst place the homeowners should go, right to their insurance agents and get their damages covered under their homeowners insurance. But sometimes FEMA will release funds to cover losses for homeowners when they’re not insured.” e team takes pictures of the damage and uses an app on their phone to put the data into.
When teams see tornado damage to a house as they drive through neighborhoods, they get out of their car, knock on the door and ask if the person there is the homeowner or if it is a rental. at data is then collected.
“Which sends it immediately back to where we’re at at the incident command post and then we’re tabulating that information,” said Schnackenberg. “And ultimately, all that information that’s being tabulated today will get sent to FEMA in the next week or so.”
Along with some photos of the assessments taking place, the Douglas County’s Sheri ’s O ce shared a video on social media of the mobile command post where personnel were doing di erent kinds of mapping.
According to Schnackenberg, when the deputies are nished with a street, personnel change the color
