Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD)

It was a little more than a year ago that I went, on behalf of the church, to my first COAD meeting-three weeks before Hurricane Sandy.  The idea was pretty simple, looking at what was being done in the County about disaster preparedness and response.  There had been a couple of fires in Perth Amboy in the weeks before and it seemed like opportunities missed that our church could not be part of the response.

It seemed like a natural fit to our vision to be a Neighborhood in the Kingdom of God.  How can we help in our own community?  Then Hurricane Sandy struck and the Long Term Recovery Group formed as an extension of the COAD, and that is where my time has gone.

So what is it that COAD can do for the church?  Or what can the church do for the COAD?  There is a small group here for the meeting today and Steve Nagle, the chair person, commented that it is “very hard to get people to focus on the next storm, while they are still focusing on this storm.”

Disaster preparation.  Not something that is at the forefront of our minds, despite the beating we took from Hurricane Sandy.  Still, it is a big question, what do we do for the next one?  And what if the next one comes up Raritan Bay, not across the Shore like Sandy did?  And what if its not natural, but manmade?  Terrorists?  Industrial accident?

This is a reflection in the light of the First Anniversary of Hurricane Sandy in a couple of weeks.  What should we be prepared to do next time?  How do we make sure our people are all okay?  Our congregation is spread over a wide area.  How do we set ourselves up as a center in the community?  We are a block up from the Waterfront, which was so damaged.  We have so much space, so many possibilities. 

What practical results have we seen in our congregation since the Hurricane?  One member gave a number of hours of volunteer service to the office.  Another entered their training and works now in Case Management.  And now, a year out, the real need for volunteers and for work crews is finally beginning in earnest.  Before now, I would have assumed that the work for recovery would be DONE after a year.

I have not talked to anyone yet in our congregation who has flat told me that this is something we should not do.  The big question is how?  It starts with people whose hearts resonate with what they read here.  They want to be involved, but are not sure what to do.  This is your opportunity to reach back to me.  If there are three people interested in doing something to prepare for disaster through our church, we have a beginning. 

And we don’t have to be disaster experts or first responders or credentialed up and down and back and forth.  We just need to be people who care about one another, doing what a Neighborhood does to look after its own.