Our team arrived in the Minot ND area about 48 hours ago and found that over 5000 homes were affected by the flooding which leads to a long term deployment for NECHAMA. Volunteers housing has been extended to us by St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Berthold, ND which is about 20 miles from Minot.
NECHAMA is also working with AmeriCorps and has 2 teams that we are partnering with along with other agencies. Our plan is to remain in the area until we find that we have no longer a steady stream of volunteers or the weather becomes too cold to work.
Minot is approximately 8 hours north of Minneapolis/ St. Paul. It does have an airport and Amtrak does service that area also. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Amy acytron@nechama.org with dates and information regarding your travel and your accommodation needs.

To find out more about Tisha b’Av -the next Jewish holiday coming up in August by clickin on Jewish Learning to the right.
The destruction of the Temple, which we remember on Tisha b’Av (literally, the 9th of the month of Av on the Hebrew calendar), has become a catchall day for the remembrance of Jewish catastrophe and disaster.

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After having all three of our deployment trailers in the field from April 29th and until June 30, we finally have all of our equipment and personnel back home. Our staff needs some well-deserved R & R, and our equipment needs to cleaned, refurbished and restocked. Here is a summary of our last few months and what we look forward to.

· We helped respond to a situation where 425 tornados hit sixteen southern states in four days. These storms killed over 350 people. The area was utterly devastated.
· During the time from April 29th through June 30th, NECHAMA conducted the following operations:
o We worked in Mississippi on tornado cleanup and on rescue and recovery from April 28th until May 18th.
o We worked in Birmingham, Alabama on tornado cleanup from May 19th through June 30th. It was reported that over 250 people lost their lives as a result of the Alabama tornadoes.
o During our 37 days in Birmingham, NECHAMA made it possible for 24 families to get back into their homes.
o We conducted flood relief operations in Memphis, Tennessee as a result of severe flooding along the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
o We spent four days helping the people of North Minneapolis, Minnesota to recover following a large tornado that utterly devastated the area.

We will definitely be responding to the Minot, North Dakota floods and expect to be working there through the rest of the summer and fall.

Before we can respond, we need to wait for about 9 feet of water to recede. We also need to wait until the City of Minot has inspected all of the flood-damaged homes in the area, because of this, we expect to begin flood recovery and cleanup operations in Minot around August 1st.

Please continue to watch our website www.nechama.org for further updates regarding NECHAMA’s upcoming deployment to Minot.

Thanks again for all of the help you’ve given to NECHAMA. Without your efforts, we would be unable to help disaster victims to recover.

NECHAMA will complete its deployments to Birmingham, AL and Memphis, TN by next Thursday, June 30th . These were two very successful deployments. Thanks again to all of our volunteers and others who helped with logistics.

As you’ve heard, there is extensive flooding along the Missouri River in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Missouri. In addition, the city of Minot, ND has ordered large scale evacuations due to the flooding of the Mouse River. NECHAMA is actively evaluating these situations and will announce by the middle of July where we will be deploying to assist with flood cleanup and recovery.

PLEASE WATCH BOTH YOUR EMAILS AND NECHAMA’s WEBSITE FOR OUR NEXT DEPLOYMENT ANNOUNCEMENTS.