On the “bright side”, or rather wishful thinking: “Three point five weeks after the devastation brought on by Hurricane Helene on 26 September 2024, all the water in western North Carolina has receded, mud has been shoveled away, downed trees cut and wood neatly stacked, debris condensed to piles and picked up by public works vehicles. Everyone in North Carolina has pretty much cleaned up their homes, yards, roads and towns have returned to normalcy. There’s plenty of food to go around and clothing has been successfully handed out and everyone has some form of shelter now. All residents in the hardest hit areas are warm and safe and back to their regular jobs, and everyone is getting their free checks thanks to FEMA and federal government efforts…”
Right? Wrong. However, you might very well believe the above given the positively framed, sanitized mainstream media coverage of ongoing relief efforts in the news. We can’t make any particular administration look bad now, can we, especially where death and suffering are concerned, especially if slowness of response or ineptitude is present and evident? Goodness, no!
Conversely: “Actually, the truth is that after deliberate destruction brought about by classified government weather machines that directed the hurricane toward conservative portions of the country to influence election results, black helicopters have been deliberately destroying supply distribution locations with rotor wash, and military personnel are blocking roads and stopping supply shipments that volunteers are desperately trying to deliver, all for no apparent reason…”
Yes? No, but this is no-kidding messaging taking place on several social media platforms, 17 days out from the election at the time of the writing of this article, so let’s see how things play out.
The reality of the situation in western North Carolina post-Hurricane Helene during this political season is more like something in-between. Things are still very dynamic in the parts of the state hardest hit by the storm. Locals and volunteers from multiple states and, yes, even some federal government officials, including active duty military and national guard personnel, are working hard and have been working hard for weeks to respond to the damage caused by the storm. They are driving, flying, and sweating, cleaning and distributing, searching and conducting recovery operations. Depending on how hard they were hit, some local residents actually have fully recovered, but choose to continue to spend their free time helping others in the local community recover physically, mentally, and spiritually; people like the parishioners of St Nicholas Orthodox Church and Father Steven Webb.
In preparation for writing this article, I reached out to Father Steven Webb, rector of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Fletcher-Asheville, North Carolina. The man was going 100 mph when I spoke to him, organizing efforts and distributing necessities as five rescue aircraft flew overhead and distribution vehicles sped by during our conversation! (Father Steven was recently featured in an article on the Orthodox Christianity website, well worth reading. If you’d like to help Father Steven and his parish, please visit the link in the article.)
During our discussion, he provided some very important insights on best practices and lessons learned. I’ve tried to integrate them into a checklist below that I researched and started previously, in an attempt to make things as helpful as possible for a reader interested in setting up an emergency preparedness plan at his/her parish. I truly appreciate Father Steven’s candidness, and I hope to read in the near future of his personal experiences through this event, including the tragedies and miracles he witnessed first-hand in his hometown.
According to Father Steven, some of the folks in his neck of the woods have plenty of food and water thanks to generous donations, but some individuals and families are still isolated, cut off by obstacles, their roads destroyed with no hope of repair for possibly a year or more, as they are being told. Mud and rocks, debris and trees are still everywhere. Supplies are being carried out on foot, by mule, donkey, ATVs, UTVs, civilian and military vehicles and aircraft. However, the material requirements now are somewhat different. While most may have plenty of food and water, people are going through propane quickly. Power is still out in some areas, and Individuals and families still need shelters, sleeping bags, hygiene products, cold-weather items, batteries and first aid kits. Many people are without homes, and the weather is getting much colder as Winter approaches. Unfortunately, some people refuse to leave their properties and end up paying the ultimate price, believing they will lose their property if they physically leave; twelve individuals over the past few days died because of that very fear and exposure of their bodies to the elements. Physical pain and discomfort, suffering, trauma and even death are realities mainstream media usually fails to fully disclose once the initial excitement of an impending storm story wears off, but they are very present in Fletcher and Asheville.
So what can we learn and do now before a similar disaster or a manmade disaster impacts our town or parish? What have we learned from this crisis, as individuals and specifically as Orthodox communities, from a storm that stretched over 500 miles, impacted 7 states, and brought severe damage to a portion of North Carolina the size of the state of Massachusetts? What are some key observations, recommendations and best practices that priests like Father Steven and parishes like St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Fletcher are bringing to light? I’ll try to succinctly provide those insights, along with some recommendations from my own experiences with emergency management and research into hurricanes Helene and Milton. I’ll add, I did contact other representatives from various dioceses and metropolises and emergency responders in both the impacted regions and around the United States.
Here we go; Twelve Things You Should Really Know to help you create your parish’s emergency response to disasters plan:
1. You can’t wait on the federal government to help you in a crisis.
FEMA has a grand total of about 20,000 employees distributed among ten regional offices and its HQ throughout the United States. Far fewer are temporary and non-career staff, who are generally activated only to respond to emergencies.1 I know because I applied to several FEMA jobs and was contacted to fill a temporary position that the HR rep informed me meant no pay if I wasn’t actually engaged in a disaster. Also, while they do conduct regularly scheduled exercises, reality on the ground during a real world crisis can be a lot more challenging than any simulation.
For some strange reason, senior FEMA leaders seem to be very focused on some curious political buzzwords in the performance of their duties over the past four years. For example, in its 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, FEMA lists “three bold, ambitious goals and objectives…” that “will help ensure success for our agency, emergency management community, and those we serve.”2
FEMA’s bold, ambitious goals include3:
Goal 1: Instill equity as a foundation of Emergency Management
Yep, equity as a foundation of emergency management. Goal #1 is not ensuring communities are self-sufficient and resilient in times of crisis. Nope. FEMA’s top strategic priority is instilling equity as a foundation of emergency management. There are a few videos going around showing the same: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/fema-lgbtq-video-helene/
Goal 2: Lead whole of community in climate resilience
This goal deals with climate change and includes educating on climate change.
Goal 3: Promote and sustain a ready FEMA and prepared nation
Oh. There it is. Listed at #3. Assuming FEMA is already ready, of course.
2. People want to help you, now. Where do they go to donate? What items do you need?
Figure it out, ahead of time. There are a lot of caring folks out there that want to help you shortly after a crisis. You may be without power, but your friends and relatives in other states are not. Can you ask them to post on your parish Facebook site where to visit to donate to your church? Can you ask someone to set up a givesendgo.com fund? How about creating a website to accept funds for multiple Orthodox parishes like Father Steven Webb has done with Appalachian Orthodoxy. (Please give as generously as you can!)
Consider the amount donors will be charged by the service provider for their donations, as it adds up quickly and can seem quite excessive after a while. Personally, I prefer givesendgo.com over gofundme.com
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3. Get to know your neighbors, because in a crisis, you may very well need them and you will likely work with them.
Despite the level of destruction and the fact people are still reeling from Hurricane Helene’s impact, almost no one has gone off-the-rails and started shooting as a result of self-preservation concerns. There are firsthand reports from folks on the ground that looting of supplies is an issue, and guards are posted to prevent theft at distribution points.
For the most part, though, people are being neighborly and helping those in need. Which brings up the recommendation: If you don’t know them already, get to know your neighbors. Yes, even the weird ones and the quiet ones that keep to themselves, the annoying superior-acting ones, the grumpy retired folks, and the neighbors with 10 kids that leave their toys all over their unkept yard. If you are an insular parish priest who avoids the Evangelical Protestants or Catholics in your area, learn to love them. Those people may become your best friends in a crisis as neighbor steps in to help neighbor survive and rebuild. If you are a member of a parish, get to know your closest sister parishes better; they may well end up being the first to respond to your church community in a crisis.
4. Learn a little about the Emergency Responders in your community.
While you’re meeting your neighbors, get to know the Emergency Management Director (EMD) in your city or county, and your local sheriff or law enforcement, local first responders, and local firefighters. These are the guys in charge in a crisis. You’d be surprised how many people have no idea what county they live in or that their county has a plethora of county workers, many that participate in regularly scheduled disaster exercises. These are the folks you want to know and reach out to in a disaster, very quickly. Find out if your EMD has created a citizen emergency response team (CERT) that you can join. Ask to see your state or county threat and hazard identification and risk assessment (THIRA) specifically for your community.
Try to participate in scheduled exercises and classes to discover how your local emergency responders will react to natural and manmade disasters in your area. It doesn’t hurt to get to know your roads and bridges crew, by the way. You might consider bringing them hot coffee or cookies around the holidays when they drive by, as a hospitable member of the community, and maybe just in case you get snowed or mudded in one day and could really use their help asap.
5. You can’t respond well to what you don’t properly prepare for.
Waiting until after a crisis to prepare for a crisis is not a very effective way to deal with a crisis at hand. Start things now. Do you have the supplies and basic necessities you need to survive and start work after a crisis? Food, water, first aid kit, hygiene products, chainsaws, shovels, gloves? Have you assigned trained or experienced parishioners to roles and responsibilities should a crisis occur? If not, have a short meeting after a parish council meeting one day to discuss all the above. Be sure to “pin the rose” on someone with a No Later Than completion date, or else things will get snatched up by the good idea fairy and disappear.
6. Don’t expect your higher diocese or metropolis to fix your problems, or reach out to you during a disaster.
Prepare to be alone and unafraid. If you haven’t discovered it yet, many bishops expect their local priests and parishes to be self-sufficient and resilient in a crisis. Why?
*They’re often not physically close by, and may be even hundreds of miles away.
*They’re usually not trained for or have very little experience dealing with crisis/natural or manmade disasters.
*They may not be social media savvy and/or tech aware enough to ensure their websites are informing others of your situation and how to best assist your needs (although they certainly can find that out and implement updates to their website)
*They have other things to do… seriously, like the annual festival coming up or youth program event. If you don’t believe me, check out your/other dioceses’/metropolis’ websites. You might be surprised to see that roughly 50% of those with online representation have little or no information on the two most recent hurricanes, or updates on what parishes were affected by the storms, or how best to support them.
*They may be responding to the same disaster you are in their own community.
FYI: Most dioceses do not have money or resources put aside for a parish in a crisis, despite experiencing the pandemic in 2020 and the multiple disasters we’ve had across the country over the past few decades. If you’re lucky, and you are a single entity experiencing a single catastrophic event, you may or may not have a bishop that will try to raise some funds for your parish. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to ask.
In my humble opinion, most bishops definitely need to do a better job of reaching out to their individual parish priests during a crisis. From what I’ve witnessed during 2020 lockdowns and to date with these hurricanes, with respect to bishops, your priest is fortunate if he gets a phone call during a disaster, and extremely lucky to get a personal visit by his bishop soon after a dire situation arises, for one or more of the reasons previously mentioned above.
7. Stay connected and improve your situational awareness in a crisis.
You need to be plugged in, figuratively and literally to the right information sources to know what’s going on around you. Talk to your EMD. Ask what radios you can buy or what channels your CERT team operates on. Find out what websites will have the latest updates for a disaster in your state and county. For example, North Carolina uses the North Carolina Department of Public Safety website: https://www.ncdps.gov/our-organization/emergency-management/hurricane-helene and Florida uses their Florida Disaster website: https://www.floridadisaster.org/disaster-updates/Hurricanemilton/
Where will you find information on disasters in your state? Do some research now so you’re not wasting time during a disaster.
To literally be plugged in, have a waterproof solar cell phone and laptop charger of some kind. Have a laptop and old cell phone with chargers in a large waterproof bag with desiccant in it if you have extras. Waterproof them with two thick-mil plastic bags. With power out for extended periods of time, you need to make calls and stay up to date on official announcements. You also need a laptop and charger to fill out forms for financial assistance from (cough) helpful organizations like FEMA, bless their hearts.
Has Elon Musk provided free Starlink terminals to your area but you can’t get your hands on one? Got an iPhone 14 or later? Good news: you can connect your iPhone to a Starlink satellite to text emergency services, request roadside assistance, message local authorities, family, and friends, and share your location, even without cellular phone or Wi-Fi coverage. Follow the directions on this link: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105097 Better yet, print off the instructions and put a copy with your solar cell phone charger and old phones in your RFID bag, with a tiny desiccant humidity absorber, and again, wrapped in a thick-mil waterproof bag. Oh, and keep a copy in your vehicle as well.
8. Use discernment and some rudimentary fact checking to dispel fiction in social media, or just stop the scrolling.
Mis and disinformation can get overwhelming; it’s so hard to figure out what’s real online today. And like it or not, bad information or the incitement of violence does not help in an emergency management situation. If folks are inept or not doing their jobs, take note, inform their supervisor when you have time, but try to figure out a way to survive without them. Avoid “doom scrolling”. Pray for discernment with respect to what you see online, and do some cursory fact checking (without using Google, or slanted search engines closely tied to Google, for obvious reasons.)
Whatever you do, DO NOT respond, officially or unofficially, to emotional postings on social media platforms as a spiritual leader. It’s just not worth it, it’s wasting your precious time. Turn it off.
9. Get ready to help others after yourself.
Physically, mentally, spiritually. Are you in a good, safe position after some serious work? Have you rested up? Great, now go out and help others.
Do not be afraid to pray with others in your community. The worst most will say if they’re not interested is, “No thanks.” You’ll likely be surprised the positive impact praying with others will have on them, and on you.
Also, your community emergency responders may look at your nice big fellowship hall as a great place to set up an emergency operations center and/or distribution point. Check out the OrthoChristian.com article above for an example.
10. After initial efforts, if things improve, people need to get back to work.
Businesses need to get back to business, and your parishioners need to make money to support their families. And then what? Who’s going to be on your team when there’s still so much work to get done? The answer: homeschooling moms and retirees! Why not? Also, develop a list of volunteers and consider rotating them after a set period of time.
11. International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) is awesome.
If you haven’t visited it’s website to see what they’re doing now, and if you haven’t discovered their resources, you really need to check them out at IOCC.org This is the appeals page for helping victims of Hurricane Helen and Milton.
IOCC is a humanitarian aid and development agency of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America. They are not Emergency Responders. But they sure help in a disaster, a lot! A few worthwhile resources:
You can find assistance in getting your local parish ready for a disaster or crisis by joining the Operation Homefront Program:
https://iocc.org/take-action/orthodox-homefront-usa
And start your own emergency disaster preparedness plans here: https://iocc.org/blog/disasters-happen-prepare-today
You can volunteer and sign up to join an action team, like those they currently have in VA and will soon be helping in NC.
It’s worth noting, on their website, IOCC announced a $1,000,000 fundraising goal for hurricane response. Like I said, it’s an awesome organization.
12. It ain’t over till it’s over, and it ain’t gonna be over for a while.
So when you’re in the thick of things, pace yourself, pray, rest, and seek the comfort of your priest and parishioners who also need comfort reciprocated from you. If you are a priest or community leader, provide your disaster response vision, mission, and intent and pray with your parish, and with your local community. Provide work effort priorities, but then delegate and assign responsibilities to those talented individuals in your parish who can manage and execute responsibilities effectively and independently. Ask for updates and check on them, bless them, encourage and thank them for their efforts. Successfully preparing for and responding to a disaster can absolutely be a positive experience for everyone involved.
Now, you’ve got your checklist above that includes best practices and lessons learned… go out there and get a plan together for your parish! Print off this article, grab a highlighter or email this to your priest and parish council to get things rolling. Join IOCC’s Homefront Program, get disaster smart, and have a discussion about what’s happening to Orthodox parishes right now in your church, while the interest is high and memories are fresh.
May your emergency preparedness efforts be blessed, and God save and protect those impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
My brother, wife, and his family (six kids) lost their home in western NC. Fr. Matthew Williams and St. Tikhon parish in Blountville, TN helped get them out of NC. And they’re in TN still trying to put the pieces back together. It’s gonna take a long time. They have a give send go if anyone wants to donate.
https://www.givesendgo.com/GDD65
Everything is gone. The gvt was useless. Utterly. Here’s what they learned…….chainsaws are vital. Get one and learn how to use it. Keep all your documents in one place, ready to go. Make a bug out bag and keep it handy. Make sure the car is full of gas. Forget electric cars. Seriously. Get to know your neighbors. They looked out for each other. They shared resources and information. Understand the gvt will probably not save you. Look at Lahaina. Look at East Palestine. The gvt doesn’t care about you.
Yes, I’ve been very upset by the poor church leadership during Covid. I’ve been especially upset by the leadership of the Greek Church on many, many issues. We need another ecumenical council to resolve serious distortions in church doctrines.