Help for EBT card users who lost food due to extended power outages

Tues­day 4:30 p.m.

Sud­den­ly our office lob­by and phone lines are being flood­ed with calls from EBT card users regard­ing the reis­suance of Food Stamps for the replace­ment of food lost due to the pow­er out­ages caused by the hur­ri­cane. Peo­ple are expect­ing to be able to obtain a let­ter from their pow­er sup­pli­er val­i­dat­ing the loss of pow­er which they would, in turn, take to their coun­ty DFACS office to obtain the replace­ment EBT ben­e­fit. This is known as a Form 841. We sim­ply can­not pro­duce those thou­sands of let­ters today on demand while we’re still try­ing to restore pow­er to those still out. But there is a workaround. I’m no author­i­ty but I have been in fre­quent con­tact with Shawn Brown, the Direc­tor for DFACS in Lib­er­ty Coun­ty. Mr. Brown in fever­ish­ly work­ing with the direc­tors of the oth­er affect­ed coun­ties and through the State to have a mass dec­la­ra­tion which means indi­vid­u­als would not have to wait for a let­ter from their pow­er com­pa­ny. If you hear of some­one who is des­per­ate to get that let­ter, please tell them it may not be nec­es­sary. Best bet is to call or vis­it your local DFACS office. We wel­come you here to our office at any time but would rather you not come for a let­ter that we can’t deliv­er and one that may not be need­ed. I expect you will hear more about this on our local radio and tele­vi­sion news sta­tions tonight. Please share this infor­ma­tion with your friends.   — J. Mark Bolton