Cherokee Nation Working To Help Members Recover From Tornados

Volunteers and storm victims are making more progress with cleanup from Friday’s Tornadoes.

One of the groups that have been on the ground since the beginning is Cherokee Nation Emergency Management.

Cherokee Nation Provides Assistance After Severe Storms 

More than 800 members of the Cherokee Nation were in the direct path of the tornadoes and Cherokee Nation Emergency Management is putting in the long hours to help them. Jeremie Fisher is the Director of Cherokee Nation EM and has been on the ground with his emergency management team since Friday night.

"Once we got the incident stabilized the gas leaks plugged and the utilities to start coming back online," said Fisher. "We began operations here at our emergency operations center."

That center is the command post for Fisher and his team, which is made up of people from I.T. to Emergency Medical Services the Cherokee Nation Marshals Service and more. Fisher says they can track in real time, where they need to send crews.

"Removing debris from driveways and roads to cutting trees off of people homes and also putting tarps on people’s roofs and doing anything we can to help people," said Fisher.

Emergency Management is also working with the Red Cross which is helping people find housing. There are also feeding centers open and a hotline for people to call to get help.

"This event spanned over five counties and so county emergency managers are the first line of accessing local resources for different communities," said Fisher

Fisher says the most challenging part has been communication but says his team is determined to help.  

"It's communications with the public its communications with other emergency response agencies but we've done a really great job in coordinating with our local other tribes around us the state and the federal areas," said Fisher

The hotline number is 918-207-3871. It's open between normal business hours 8-5 p.m.

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