President Obama’s declaration today of a major disaster in Florida is triggering the release of federal funds to help affected
residents recover from the recent rainfall event in Volusia County that began May 17. The assistance will be to individuals and households.
Public assistance has not been declared at this time, Shelley Szafraniec, a county spokeswoman.
To apply for assistance, residents must be a homeowner, renter or business owner in Volusia County with disaster-related damage or loss
resulting from the May 17 and continuing severe storms, flooding, tornado and straight-line winds. Residents whose properties have been
affected by the recent rainfall can either visit one of two Disaster Recovery Centers (DRC) in the county, register online anytime at
www.DisasterAssistance.gov, or call 800-621-FEMA (3362) or 800-462-7585 (TTY) for hearing/speech impaired from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.,
seven days a week. The DRCs will be open at the following locations beginning from 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. Thursday, May 28:
# Holly Hill Recreation Center, 1046 Daytona Ave., Holly Hill (this is the location of the previous Essential Services Center).
# Dickerson Center, 308 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Daytona Beach.
FEMA representatives (to assist individuals) and Small Business Administration (SBA) representatives (to assist businesses) will be at
the DRCs to register residents. Residents must bring the following information with them to the DRCs or when calling the FEMA hotline:
# Contact information (name, address)
# Social Security Number
# Household income information/number of people in household
# Insurance information
# A description of damage to their home/business as a result of
the rainfall event
SBA representatives will be at the DRCs to meet with individuals and business owners to answer any questions about SBA’s disaster loan
program, help them complete their SBA disaster loan application and accept the completed disaster loan applications. Anyone not able to
visit a DRC should call the SBA Customer Service Center from 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. Monday - Friday, at 800-659-2955 (800-877-8339 for the
speech/hearing impaired) for information and assistance or visit the SBA website at www.sba.gov.
ESSENTIAL SERVICE CENTER UPDATE
The two Essential Service Centers remained open Wednesday to offer assistance to citizens affected by the flooding. As of 4 p.m. Wednesday, the Daytona Beach center had provided services to more than 938 people; the Holly Hill center had provided services to more than 761 people (these totals are for Tuesday and Wednesday).
The ESCs were designed as one-stop shops where local residents can receive information on recovery activities, state and local services,
and connect to faith- and community-based relief organizations. The centers were interim facilities to assist flood survivors while local
damage assessments continue and federal disaster requests were pending.
As of Thursday morning, the ESC in Holly Hill will convert to one of the two Disaster Recovery Centers, the ESC in Daytona Beach will close
and the second DRC will open in Daytona Beach at the address listed above.