Burney, Spence Detail Volunteer, FEMA Coordination After Storm

YALOBUSHA COUNTY — Mississippi State Extension Service County Agent Missy Burney and EMA Director Stewart Spence provided supervisors an overview of volunteer operations at the county’s Multi-Purpose Building following Winter Storm Fern.

The report came during the Feb. 17 Board of Supervisors meeting. Burney, who helped coordinate activity at the Multi-Purpose Building, said the relief effort officially shut down the night before the meeting, but compiling accurate numbers will take time.

The documentation is critical as the county works through the federal disaster reimbursement process. Under current guidelines, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cover 75 percent of eligible debris removal in the county, with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency covering 12.5 percent. The remaining 12.5 percent is the county’s responsibility. Volunteer labor, county labor, donated supplies and other in-kind contributions can be counted toward offsetting that local share, making accurate recordkeeping essential.

“I don’t have numbers yet. I have sheets with names on them because we just shut down last night,” Burney told the board.

“It’s going to take getting into my office and putting a spreadsheet together to have the hours. We had hundreds and hundreds of volunteers.”

Burney said the first weekend of operations was so overwhelming that volunteers had to be turned away.

“We had to turn the volunteers away because we had people just walking all over each other out back,” she said. “It was great, but it just got to be unmanageable.”

She estimated that approximately eight volunteers were present nearly every day throughout the operation.

“They were amazing,” Burney said.

Burney said the pace remained relentless in the days immediately following the storm.

“I was there usually at 7 o’clock in the morning, and Stewart was right there with me, and we were going home at 9 or 10 o’clock at night,” she said.

She credited Stewart’s leadership throughout the operation.

“Stewart did an amazing job,” Burney said. “He was right there the whole time.”

Supervisors echoed that praise, commending Burney, Stewart and the volunteers for organizing relief under difficult conditions, including limited power and heavy demand for supplies.

“To put together what they did in a short amount of time under those conditions was phenomenal,” Board President Cayce Washington said. “I’ve got to commend the entire effort by Missy, Stewart and everybody that they enlisted to help.”
Burney also described the toll the long days took.

“It’s tough, but it’s rewarding,” Burney said. “You see the best of people and you see the worst of people.”

The building served as a distribution site for blankets, bottled water, clothing, propane tanks and other essential supplies. Hundreds of meals were prepared and served there, and the facility also operated as a Red Cross shelter during the storm response. Burney said approximately 1,500 propane units were distributed, largely through the United Cajun Navy and other relief groups.

Spence reported that supplies remain in inventory, including bottled water, tarps, non-perishable food and blankets, which will be stored at the Emergency Operations Center for future use.

“We’ve got probably eight pallets of water, a pallet of tarps and non-perishable food like MREs,” Spence said. “It’s just logistically getting it back to the EOC building.”