They all disband after the fact, though, aside from the last one which may endure in the form of a Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) group.
After last year’s flooding, the county developed a long-term recovery team and, this time, wanted to keep the momentum going, so it began organizing the COAD. Today, momentum is strong with funding and plenty of groups and organizations jumping on board.
Although it’s a community organization, the initial charge is being led by the Elkhart County Emergency Management Agency, which coordinated the first meeting. The response was phenomenal with 22 different church groups showing up, as well as: three utilities; 12 responder agencies; a mayor; the humane society; a local DHS representative, among others.
“We partnered with the Salvation Army and United Way and sent out mailings to every church, school, first responder, everyone we could think of and received 63 individuals at the meeting,” said Jen Tobey, Elkhart County Emergency Management director.
She said registration forms are pouring in and the plan is to have bi-monthly meetings. But those won’t be the only activity of the COAD. The plan is to be active even when there is no disaster declaration.
“We’re tweaking the definition of COAD a bit,” Tobey said. For example, this winter had some especially cold days where there was concern for the homeless. The tent cities people were invited into the fold and the COAD offered to help in the form of food banks and other resources. “If there is an incident countywide, we’ll address it,” Tobey said
One of the advantages of this organization is that it started with money in the bank. Although the previous three recovery efforts didn’t last, they did raise more than enough donated money, some of which was saved by the city of Nappanee, which voted to hand the money over to Elkhart County for disasters.
The money allowed Tobey and the county to “hit the ground running. If you don’t have the funds, you can’t offer to help others,” she said.
That funding was part of the equation of near-perfect timing for launching the COAD. The residual effect of the previous recovery efforts, in the form of people who had been through it, worked out perfectly this time around.
“Some of them had done this before and there are some new people who had no experience but got trained through the Indiana VOAD [Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster],” Tobey said. “It hit the right population at the right time where a lot of people want to be active and volunteer, and some are retiring and want to take over leadership positions.”
One retired Salvation Army worker has volunteered to handle the books and other organizational duties for the COAD. Another volunteer quietly approached Tobey after the initial meeting and said that her church has an enormous gymnasium down the street that is never used.
“She said it’s a mile away and we are welcome to use it,” Tobey said. “It sits empty most of the time and nobody knew about it.”
