by SARAH THOMACK
St. Joseph Post
Flood relief efforts will continue for a while in south St. Joseph after flooding in July damaged hundreds of homes.
“Because this disaster doesn’t qualify for FEMA support, and because they were not in a flood zone that required flood insurance on these homes, most of these people are having to rebuild with just the support of the community,” says Kylee Strough, United Way of Greater St. Joseph President. “There is no insurance to help them cover these costs.”
Strough says their organization is helping coordinate some of the flood relief efforts. When Chick-fil-A St. Joseph owner Ruthie Seitz asked how they could help, Strough suggested partnering with InterServ.
“InterServ is actually located down in the south end and is a multi-faceted nonprofit agency, so they have the ability to help the families that have been impacted in a very direct way, along with other agencies,” Strough says. “So they did a fundraiser last Friday and raised $10,000, that’s a lot of chicken, that’s awesome.”
Chick-fil-A St. Joseph donated 50% of sales from August 7th to InterServ’s flood relief efforts. Strough says the funds will go to a wide range of short and long-term needs.
“Those dollars are going to go to help families’ first month rent and deposit, if they need to move, help them with a little bit of assistance if they need to replace an appliance, things like that," Strough says. "Also, really quickly and directly, InterServ and United Way have been partnering to supply building materials at giveaways that are happening at the Keys Christian Fellowship.”
Strough says it’s estimated over 200 houses were impacted by the flooding. Community Action Partnership, United Way or InterServ have connected with about 170 of those households who have needed help.
“Our first step is to make sure families have somewhere to stay, to sleep, things like that, and then looking at what are their longer term housing needs, do they need help with repairs,” Strough says. “That’s when we pull in the Baptists and Habitat and Community Action Partnership to do some of those repairs that are required. Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief is cleaning out the mud, the gunk, doing power washing; Baptist Church Journey and Habitat are going in with subfloors, sheet rock, things like that for some houses.”
Strough says they are also talking with the City of St. Joseph about what demolition looks like for some homes that families are not going to be able to return to.
“How can we make that not so burdensome for families to accomplish so that they can begin thinking about, do they sell their lot or do they move a mobile or modular home or do they try to rebuild.”
For resources and information on flood relief efforts or if anyone wants to volunteer, visit InterServ’s website at faithfullyserving.org or United Way of Greater St. Joseph’s website at stjosephunitedway.org.