As a federal agency, TVA is legally obligated to support the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in its disaster recovery efforts when requested. Since FEMA’s inception in 1979, TVA has supported FEMA as needed. In 1989, TVA decided to send members of the non-profit TVA-initiated retiree organization, Bicentennial Volunteers, Inc. (BVI), rather than its active workforce to represent TVA’s support for a disaster in South Carolina. Who knew that this relationship would still be ongoing 35 years later?
Since then, TVA continues to support FEMA’s disaster recovery endeavors (first through BVI, then through a dedicated nonprofit organization created just for this purpose, National Emergency Assistance (NEA)). When NEA’s employees respond to requests from FEMA to assist with national disaster work, they may find themselves in any state of the union. In the last 35 years, NEA has been deployed to no less than 42 states and two US territories. Standard deployments are usually three to four months away from home. NEA specializes in helping FEMA with Public Assistance, focusing on damages incurred to private nonprofit organizations and publicly owned facilities (roads, bridges, courthouses, schools, wastewater treatment plants, electrical distribution, city parks, etc.)
NEA is made up of former federal employees, with the majority from TVA. BVI manages the contract between NEA and TVA, with BVI acting as TVA’s agent. Because most NEA employees begin as retirees, the work force is an older group. Employees are mostly in their early 50s to mid-80s. Both NEA and FEMA value their previous and current work experience regardless of age.
By working in all the states and territories, many NEA employees have been able to experience unique opportunities. They have worked with many of the indigenous tribes located throughout the United States. They have monitored debris removal from shrimp boats in the Gulf of Mexico. They have flown in helicopters and charter planes to be able to see the varied damages. They have experienced white-out blizzards in October and the results of horrendous tornados and flooding. They have stayed in not-so-clean motels to vacation condos on the beach. They have seen that each state, each city, each town has its own beauty and its own good people.
Currently, NEA has about 70 people deployed to 12 different disasters throughout the 50 states and the seven territories. The average NEA employee has been on nine deployments. Those who give it a try tend to like the work. “I’ve met the nicest people in the world” says Bill Heald, currently deployed to California. “I’ve been doing this work since 2005 and I like helping the communities.” Monica Cross, who is preparing to deploy to Minnesota, her 17th deployment, concurred, “I like seeing different parts of the US and its territories and meeting new people. I love the job.”
As part of NEA’s celebration, the NEA Program Managers, Susan Self and Chris Slaton, are visiting each deployment location to recognize the employees whose deployments have brought us to this point. At each deployment, pins are given to the FEMA partners. The week of July 15, they celebrated with the five employees deployed to Florida as well as the 13 employees deployed to Vermont. Kathy Black, NEA’s president, joined in the celebration. Later this year, they will visit Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Figure 2: FL Team Figure 2: VT Team
NEA has an active workforce of around 130 employees. NEA hires about once every two years. New hires are trained in FEMA’s policies, regulations, and the way FEMA does business before being deployed. NEA strives to match each new hire with an experienced coach. Future opportunities will be communicated through BVI’s newsletter at https://mybvi.org.
