On November 9, 2001 the director of FEMA announced that an additional $57 million would be released to assist New York City in debris removal at the World Trade Center site.  This brings the total amount obligated for Public Assistance in New York City to more than $339 million.  The public assistance funds provided by FEMA are being used to help New York City repair damaged infrastructure, restore critical services, and remove, transport and sort debris.  FEMA and the state of New York are working together to provide public assistance to eligible applicants. 

On November 19, 2001 state and federal disaster recovery officials announced that disaster assistance from FEMA, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the state of New York had topped $657 million.  Response and Recovery efforts reported as of November 15, 2001:
· More than 40,700 people have registered with FEMA for state and federal disaster assistance
· More than $164 million in Individual Assistance has been approved in the form of grants and loans
- FEMA has approved $17.6 million in disaster housing assistance
- More than $3.4 million in disaster food stamps has been distributed to more than 29,000 individuals
- The Disaster Unemployment Assistance program has provided more than $600,000 in assistance to workers and business owners
- The State of New York approved $1.1 million for individual and family grants for disaster victims
- More than $22.7 million was committed in crisis counseling grants
- SBA has approved $118.7 million in low-interest loans to 1380 applicants.
· FEMA has funded more than $154 million through other agencies including:
- The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers provides technical assistance to the debris removal operation.  More than 556,626 tons of debris have been removed to the Staten Island landfill.
- Disaster Medical Assistance Teams from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have treated more than 9,310 patients.  On November 19, 2001, HHS announced the emergency awarding of nearly $35 million in grants to 131 public and not-for-profit entities that suffered losses because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 
- FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue Task Force has mobilized 1260 personnel to the World Trade Center site.  Twenty teams from 14 states assisted fire and police personnel in searching for victims in the aftermath of the collapse of the WTC towers.
· More than 200 voluntary agencies from community and faith-based organizations, labor unions, national organizations, labor unions, national organizations and governmental agencies are working to identify long-term recovery needs and developing solutions to address these issues. A few of the many organizations include:
- The American Red Cross has committed more than $543 million for on-going disaster relief.  The Red Cross has provided emotional support for 121,000 people and served more than 10 million meals.
- Nearly 13,000 Salvation Army volunteers have served 1.6 million meals around the New York City area.  The Salvation Army has also handled more than 59,000 mental health and social service cases.
- Affiliates of Americas Second Harvest food bank network continue to provide refrigerated trucks and drivers, and distribute food donations to help feed rescue workers.
- The Southern Baptist Convention with 9,287 volunteers has prepared 423,330 meals, cared for 452 children and cleaned 387 apartments.
- Safe Horizon operates a 24 hour, 7 day a week hotline for crisis counseling, referral and information throughout New York City. 
- New York Cares had thousands of volunteers assisting with relief-related efforts.

*This information and updated statistics are available from the FEMA website: http://www.fema.gov/ 
 

Addendum to article in November Disaster Newsletter:

The November 1, 2001 edition of the EMGT 232 Disaster Newsletter reported the number of casualties from the World Trade Center attack using information available as of October 24th.  On November 21, 2001 the New York Times ran an article titled: “Toll From Attack at Trade Center is Down Sharply.”** The article stated that the official count of the dead and missing in the attack on the World Trade Center had fallen to below 3,900.  The article goes on to state that the death toll for all three attacks could not be higher than 4,142 and could fall to 3,245 as the city’s revisions continue.   It is still not clear what the actual number will be, as different sources provide different numbers.  Police officials working with the city’s medical examiner’s office reported the number of dead and missing to be 3,702, while the mayor’s office puts the number at 3,899.  According to the New York Times article, Charles V. Campisi, chief of the New York Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, which is supervising the count, is committed to reaching a reliable final number and stated: “…we’ll do this until we’re confident we have the numbers right.”

**This article is available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/21/nyregion/21NUMB.html