FEMA Reassignments????

[ds21223]

I am part of a two person FF team along with about 15 other people that were sent to the Maryland National Processing Service Center to answer phones. We were told in Orlando, FL that there was a great need for help up here and the decision was pretty much volunteer or go home. We volunteered and we have been sitting around for a week waiting for the phones to ring. IF ANYONE KNOWS WHO TO CONTACT TO GET ANOTHER ASSIGNMENT, PLEASE E-MAIL OR CALL ME. sean.devine@pierrefiredept.org --832-851-3476 or 605-280-4232 Thanks.

[Mat2004]

that sucks buddy. i'm down in louisianna in a mobile DRC. from what i understand you really cant get reassigned anymore. it used to be that you could head to atlanta to get reassigned, but i guess they wanted to take away our options.

[countryboy53012]

After 6 days in Atlanta, getting little or no training, and told to hurry-up and wait, my team was sent to Orlando where we received more useless training on Individual Assistance. After the last day of training we were asked if we would be willing to go to the worst hit areas. Not one firefighter had his hand down. We were finally going to help the people that needed us the most after 10 days bureaucratic runaround. Later on, they change their mind and said they needed us to volunteer for either Virginia or Maryland and answer phones for the remainder of our tours. This didn't sit to well, but in true testiment to the fire service most volunteered for this duty, rather than go home because we signed on to help. By some miracle after we were getting our deployment orders to Virginia we were pulled aside and asked if we would want to go to Mississippi. Of course we all got excited again. We later ended up in a disaster recovery center, behind computer, working 12 hours a day. Its far from the action-oriented lifestyle we're used to but it's worthwhile for the most part. My suggestion would be talk to your Person-of-Contact that you hadwhen you got to Maryland. If not, I've learned one thing in the past 30 days that may help. If you want something done you've got to use you own back channels and call in every connection and that's the only way anything will happen. FEMA is useless in helping themselves, I don't know how they will help all these people.