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While traditionally hurricane season begins in June, the most active period begins in September. Much of the conversation has been about the current “Super El Niño” and how it tends to produce fewer hurricanes. A second, less talked about element of El Niño is that it often leads to an increase in strength and frequency of other types of storms. Instead of named hurricanes, we have a lot of smaller, much stronger storms that do damage that is less well publicized.
Currently, there is a significant flooding response in Indiana after just such a storm swept through the region. Impact Disaster Response volunteers began serving in late August and are still there training and leading local volunteers who want to serve in their own community. This storm didn’t dominate the news, so most people don’t even know the floods happened. When the teams from multiple states arrived, they found hundreds of flood-damaged homes and have been working since to clean out those homes so they can prepare to rebuild.
One of the challenges of disaster response is that how much news coverage a storm receives directly affects who responds and who gives to support the response. Impact Disaster Response has been blessed by the generosity of individuals and churches that give regularly to support the work, and with volunteers who truly love to serve. So even in a response that hasn’t made the news, we have been able to share the love of Christ with the people affected in Indiana.
We of course hope that this season, El Niño will come through and prevent hurricanes from making landfall to the degree they have in years past. We will still be ready for what storms may come, knowing that most of the responses we have seen in the last six years have been to disasters not produced by named storms. But there are still actions churches and individual volunteers can take to prepare or serve even without a disaster to respond to.
In disaster response and emergency management, the times between disasters are called “blue sky.” During blue sky, there is an opportunity to train. Impact Disaster Response is hosting training in Mid-Tidewater at Hermitage Baptist Church in Middlesex County September 18-19. This training will cover most of the disaster response disciplines, including feeding, cleanup, administration, construction, and chainsaw. There will be hands-on feeding and chainsaw work on-site. There’s no cost to attend, and participating in this training will add you to our contact list for disaster response callouts. You can register at this link.
Blue sky is also an opportunity to form relationships that help us prepare to respond. Impact Disaster Response has begun working with emergency managers to help them connect to local churches. We also want to work with churches to connect to their emergency services in their communities. When a disaster happens, those responders will look for help from people they know. If you want to be the center of your community when need arises, having those relationships is essential. At BGAV annual meeting this November, one of our learning labs will be an exploration of how to form those relationships with other helping agencies in your community. Click here for more information on that and other learning labs. We hope to see you there and walk alongside you as you apply what you learn.
Finally, blue sky is an opportunity to work to prepare for the next response and find ways to use the same skills in other spaces. To that end, Impact disaster response will be working with each region to build a tiny home. The primary intent for those homes is to quickly replace homes that are damaged beyond repair. We are beginning the first this month, and next year we hope to build one in each region. If you are interested in being part of that, you can click here.
We do hope and pray that this hurricane season will pass us by. But we know there will likely be needs for us to meet. We hope you will join us in sharing the love of Christ by responding.