Tennessee Sends Mobile Job Center to South Carolina

NASHVILLE, Tennessee, Sept. 19 -- The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development issued the following news release:

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD) deployed two mobile American Job Centers early Wednesday morning to assist with Hurricane Florence recovery efforts in South Carolina.

Teams departed from Nashville and Knoxville and will travel to a staging area in Columbia, S.C. The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce (DEW) will then assign the mobile job centers to areas of the state affected by Hurricane Florence. TDLWD staff will work alongside DEW staff helping South Carolinians who are out of work due to the storm file for disaster unemployment insurance.

"We are fortunate in Tennessee to have resources like the mobile job centers for our citizens to use on a daily basis," said TDLWD Commissioner Burns Phillips. "When our neighbors need help, it's in the spirit of Tennessee to step up and volunteer these resources to help them get through this disaster."

Tennessee's mobile job centers can bring a majority of services offered at a brick-and-mortar job center right into the community. This is essential in areas affected by Hurricane Florence which will have a large number of people applying for assistance in the wake of the storm.

These teams going to South Carolina have firsthand experience working in disaster situations. They were dispatched to Pigeon Forge in December 2016 to assist with disaster unemployment insurance benefits following the Gatlinburg wildfires.

"The fact our teams have worked in disaster situations before will tremendously help the efforts in South Carolina," said Phillips. "I am proud to know our people not only have the expertise to help our neighbors but also that our state has invested in these critical resources."

The teams are prepared to stay two weeks in South Carolina. Another group of TDLWD staff is on standby to relieve the current crews if South Carolina needs the mobile jobs centers to stay beyond the initial timeframe.

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) is coordinating Tennessee's Hurricane Florence deployments through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), the nation's state-to-state mutual aid system.