The Never-Recover Scenario

Much of what emergency management and our associated partners do is disaster response. It is the initial surge of people, supplies and effort for the 30-90 days immediately following a disaster. Then we like to talk about "long-term recovery" that is most often described in governmental terms as Individual Assistance (IA) that focuses governmental programs on individuals and families. The funds available via IA are very limited and if there are no other nonprofits coming into a community and helping, those people are left, wet, soggy and moldy if they have been through a flood.

See Long-Term Recovery Never Ends for Some After Natural Disasters, which is an article written by Jim McKay, the editor at Emergency Management magazine  He rightly points out how the surge of resources quickly dwindles after a disaster and those people without any insurance are left without their homes and no way to recover from the disaster. They are permanently impacted without a helping hand from churches and other nonprofits. 

Then also they can end up in "double jeopardy" which is not the game show term, but based on their physical location, likely near water, they can be impacted again and again. Interestingly, from a disaster point of view, "jeopardy" is many times "geo-pardy" which comes from their being in the wrong place when disasters strike. 

Claire Rubin, Senior Researcher, shared the link above.