A group of nonprofit organizations, businesses and nonprofit organizations aimed at ramping up permanent disaster response in Duval County shared its progress Thursday with the Resilient Jax working group.
The coalition is called Duval COAD, which stands for Community Organizations Active in Disaster. It’s a group of more than 40 local organizations, and it was founded after 2017’s Hurricane Irma.
“We’ve served over 2,000 households, not just with home repairs, but a lot of our partners assisted with food and replacing furniture and rental assistance, and a lot of other needs that surfaced after the storm,” said COAD staff member Raelyn Means.
The goal is to organize permanent and ongoing disaster response efforts between volunteers, nonprofits, businesses and the government.
COAD board member John Saporo said that in the context of more frequent natural disasters, experts think of the cycle of disaster management. Right after a hurricane or other event, everyone from the fire department to search and rescue crews to food support agencies respond to the crisis in emergency mode. But there are also long-term recovery needs that include building capacity to handle the next disaster, and preparing for its inevitable impact.
Some COAD members, like the United Way, the Red Cross and Feeding Northeast Florida, are active alongside government agencies in the earliest stages of disaster recovery, Saporo said.
“But there’s also a larger group of nonprofits that are active in disaster that will work with clothing and food delivery and providing resources into church-based social services in neighborhoods,” Saporo said.
Saporo said a key goal of the COAD is to make sure organizations are working collaboratively, not duplicating efforts, and covering all aspects of disaster recovery.
The COAD coalition first mobilized in August of 2019 during the threat of Hurricane Dorian and has met regularly during the coronavirus crisis.
Other members of the COAD include AARP Florida, Ascension St. Vincents, Lutheran Social Services of Northeast Florida, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, among others.
Contact Sydney Boles at sboles@wjct.org, or on Twitter at @sydneyboles.
