BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — Bradford County has signed a memorandum of understanding with Feeding Northeast Florida to help distribute food in the aftermath of a disaster.
Emergency Management Director Brad Witt and planner Michael Heeder toured the Regional Food Bank of Northeast Florida’s facilities in Jacksonville recently, which help supply multiple food giveaways throughout the area.
“They do really amazing work on a lot of volunteer staff,” Witt said.
The MOU calls for communication between emergency management and the food bank so it can be included in the county’s emergency response plans. Witt said Feeding Northeast Florida would help set up distribution points following a disaster to distribute commodities to the community.
“This comes free of charge to the county. This is their mission, this is what they do. And so simply by making them one of our partners and communicating with them, they’ll be there to help us in those events,” Witt said.
He described the two facilities Feeding Northeast Florida operates out of in Jacksonville and the third that is under construction.
“We got a tour of the building that’s actually going to be cold storage, and when I tell you that you could put a football field in what’s going to be their freezer, that is no exaggeration,” he said.
In other business, at the request of Commissioner Carolyn Spooner, emergency management is putting together a plan to help people relocate during the excessive heat to safer, more comfortable locations. Witt also offered to help spread the word for any organizations in the community already working on this.
Witt received the board’s blessing to participate in F-ROC, a new program through the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The Florida Recovery Obligation Calculation is a way for the state to examine local disaster policies and procedures, and assign a score that would secure a percentage of eligible recovery funds up front.
Witt said this would apply to large claims of $1 million or more. Hurricane Irma in 2017 would have been the county’s most recent example, he said. If Bradford’s procedural evaluation scored a 50, and the claim was $1 million, then the county would receive $500,000 up front instead of spending its own money and waiting for reimbursement.
There is no financial obligation, according to Witt, and the county can be reevaluated to raise its score based on improvements made in response to the state’s assessment.
