Congregational Disaster Readiness

Mission: To expedite relief and recovery in communities impacted by a disaster.

Vision: A Comprehensive, Collaborative and Coherent (3C’s) action plan for congregations to effectively deliver essential relief and recovery services during and after a disaster, in partnership with and in support of responsible agencies.

Rationale: The most powerful predictor of success in disaster response is communication and coordination.  A coordinated delivery of relief and recovery services prevents redundancy, saves money, minimizes disruption of services and improves outcomes.

Strategy: Identify, recruit, organize, train, and mobilize congregations to respond in an integrated and cooperative manner during disasters.

Create shareable standards, best practices, and establish centralized communication.Coordinate and deploy relief and recovery efforts. 

Generate a single umbrella group which will integrate and coordinate the efforts of all congregations within an area and ensure that these plans are: 

• Inclusive of the needs of all stakeholders (survivors and service partners).
• Integrated with, and supported by, the responsible official relief organizations.
  

Benefits:

• Enhanced community resilience
• Improved quality, consistency and coverage of services
• Expedited relief and recovery for families and neighborhoods
• Development of leaders and of trained volunteers within congregations
• Decreased service cost by eliminating redundant services 
• Increased community engagement and situational awareness
• Financial sustainability for local disaster relief and recovery groups
• More assessable support services for congregations and the community

Processes: 

Community needs assessment | Stakeholder engagement | Faith Based, Public, Private, and Not-for-Profit | Plan development, integration, and mapping | Deployment | Capability and capacity improvement | Training | Workforce (volunteer) engagement and retention   

Scope: Coordination of the relief and recovery efforts of congregations, including:

Drone Force / Damage Assessment  

Trained drone operators will assist county officials with real time situational awareness, providing images from which damage assessments can be made.

Sheltering - Dennis Hayes 

Short and long-term Red Cross sheltering and/or ride-out sheltering.

Compassionate Care / PreDCM - Cathy Beasley

Trained caregivers provide emotional and spiritual care to survivors, serving as a listening ear, a calming presence, and laying the groundwork for Disaster Case Management, initiating documentation and reporting.

Laundry - Chris Hall

Supporting shelters by helping survivors wash their clothes.

Muck & Gut - Trevor Barnett, Chris Hall

Removing damaged contents and sanitizing the home, according to standards.

Volunteer Coordination  - John Locke

Connecting volunteers with opportunities for service.

Pets  - Chris Hubert

Help families to care for their pets (dogs and cats), providing kennels and food, while they are staying in a shelter.

Communication Task-force - Gary Flaharty

Creating a multi-level, two-way communication platform to address a diversity of communication needs for alerting, recruiting, deploying and demobilizing response.

Supplies Distribution Center (supplying congregations)

Regional warehouse to supply congregations serving as a donation distribution centers.

Donations Distribution Center (supplying survivors)

Distribute essential supplies to survivors and maintaining a database of all survivors for follow-up.

Chainsaw / Clean Up

Cutting up fallen trees and disposing of debris.

Medical Support

Assist with non-emergency assistance, such as picking up prescriptions or driving survivors to doctors’ office.

Transportation

Transporting rescued survivors from staging area to shelters, via people movers.