Hurricane Sandy- A Response

Journey to New York November 14-19, 2012

Satellite of Sandy pre-landfall

Long Island Storm Surge map

Recently I was given the unique opportunity to travel to New York to help with the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Response effort. I volunteered to go and my employer the Volunteer Center of North Texas (http://www.vcnt.org/disaster/) was kind enough to allow it. As the Senior Manager of Disaster Preparedness, I work every day to prepare North Texas for large disasters and this would allow me to see a large response in a metropolitan area, while providing support to the local staff. 

Waiting at La Guardia Cab Stand

Hurricane Sandy was at Category 1 strength when it made landfall just south of Atlantic City, NJ on October 29, 2012. At 1,100 miles in diameter, it has been noted as the largest Atlantic Hurricane on record. FEMA has opened 76 recovery centers (37 NY, 31 NJ, 8 CT) and more than 453,000 people have registered for assistance. The Long Island Volunteer Center has registered 2,378 volunteers since the storm began. 

Long Island Railroad

AmeriCorps Trailer outside church

My arrival on the scene was more than two weeks after the storm and I was expecting to see blue tarps as I flew in to New York City. I was surprised when I saw none. You see in Texas, when disasters occur, they are usually tornadoes or hail and blue tarps follow quickly. I would learn later that a lot of the damage from Sandy was flooding and is devious in that you can't always see the damage on the exterior. It took two planes, a cab, three trains (though two of them were just due to my error and lack of understanding of the Long Island Railroad) and a 1/2 mile walk to get me to the United Methodist Church in Hicksville, NY. Yes, Hicksville is the name of an actual place and I have now been there. 

Matt and Phobe in the "office"

Women's Dormitory Space

I was excited to see an AmeriCorps trailer as I approached the church. I had heard there were a lot of AmeriCorps members (including FEMA corps) that were a part of the response and I had hoped to get to meet some of them. My first contact at the church was the receptionist Chris, who was quite kind to this weary traveler and showed me to a conference room to await other staff who were off-site at a meeting when I arrived. Phoebe Bicknell and Matt Lyttle from Volunteer Fairfax (Virginia) arrived a bit later to brief me on the disaster response. They had been on site since Sunday, November 11 and had been able to lay quite a bit of groundwork in their time there. They had begun to work with local emergency management to begin identifying volunteer needs and coordinate the housing situation for the volunteers staying at the church. I learned that there were about 30 people staying at the church. Some were affiliated with the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) (http://www.umcor.org/UMCOR/About-Us) and were doing muck out/debris removal from homes. The other group staying there was from AmeriCorps St. Louis (http://www.americorps-stl.org/) and they were out at the FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers gathering information about community needs that volunteers might be able to address. Yes! An AmeriCorps team. 

I learned that our part of the response would be support the Long Island Volunteer Center (http://www.longislandvolunteercenter.org/), which like the Volunteer Center of North Texas and Volunteer Fairfax (http://www.volunteerfairfax.org/) is an Affiliate of the HandsOn Network (http://www.handsonnetwork.org/). It is this affiliation that allowed me to participate in this response. A few quick facts about Long Island that I learned along the way. Long Island is 118 miles long and 23 miles wide. It is comprised mainly of Suffolk and Nassau Counties. The population during 2010 census was 7,568,304 people and If it were a state it would rank 14^th in population and 1^st in population density. That means this disaster affected a lot of people over a large geography as much of the response was along coastal areas which Long Island has in abundance. 

My first night accommodations

A beautiful treat

Cafeteria/church basement/office

That first night I found a couch in the youth room of the church to sleep on as all of the floor space in the women's dormitory space next door was taken. It was more comfortable than I expected to be while on this disaster response assignment. The next morning Phoebe and Matt took me to a local bagel place so we could get breakfast before meeting with the Long Island Volunteer Center (LIVC) staff. We also stopped at a bakery for treats on our way back to the church.  I was trying to get as much information as I could from the Volunteer Fairfax team as they were both leaving that afternoon. I will admit to being a little anxious at the prospect of taking the reins from them alone. Fortunately when I met Diana O'Neill and Pat Moynihan from Long Island Volunteer Center my concerns were completely alleviated. They were wonderful 

Pat/Phoebe/Diana/Matt

and had been handling this response since the beginning. Diana is the Executive Director and Pat is a long-time volunteer. The most amazing thing about LIVC that I learned is that they are made up of 24 staff members and they are 100% volunteers. Not one of them is a paid staff member. Each and every one of them was impacted personally by the storm. Some were without power for up to 15 days, others had trees fall through their roof and nearly all of them had friends or family members that needed help with cleanup as well. Their dedication to the effort was heroic. They had been through so much and yet they were doing everything they could to help others serve the community. I was humbled to be in their presence and to help in any way I possibly could. 

New office space

The first thing I was able to actually do was to participate in the Long Island Voluntary Agencies Active in Disaster (LIVOAD) conference call. It was on this call that I learned about the larger response and the work being done in the community. I provided the report on the previous days efforts by the AmeriCorps team and that LIVC was making efforts to secure a facility to serve as a volunteer reception center. It was nice to work with the VOAD there as I am familiar with the collaboration that takes place within VOADs (I serve on four counties in Texas- Dallas, Tarrant, Denton and Collin). Many of the players were the same and the good work translated easily.  After the meeting we moved the "office" from the women's dormitory space to the youth education office as the ladies who were working in the field were being disturbed by the after hours work that needed to be done on the computer. Immediately after moving the office we headed to a meeting with a board member of LIVC in order to discuss the potential site for the Volunteer Reception Center. This site would be a place where the different groups who could use volunteers would operate. The coordination between groups is crucial to large relief operations. Also participating in this meeting was Kellie Bentz, Director of Disaster Services with Points of Light, who had facilitated my engagement in this disaster response, Bruce Bailey, Executive Director of AmeriCorps St. Louis, Gwen O'Shea, President LIVOAD, and the LIVC board member who had client contacts with regards to real estate on Long Island. Apparently real estate for such and endeavor is limited on Long Island and the coordination meeting was quite necessary. 

Work Order System Captured information from community

After the meeting I was taken back to the church to get settled and to prepare for a training that would take place that evening. Upon arrival at the church I was able to meet with Starbuck Ballner of Nechama- Jewish Response to Disaster (http://www.nechama.org/). His group has a unique specialty in that they are willing to take on spontaneous volunteers and lead them in heavy duty clean-up efforts. While the coordination was in the early stages, the Nechama group had been on the ground working in the affected communities already and were eager to partner with LIVC to put some of the 2300 spontaneous volunteers to work. 

Color coded work order needs

The training that evening was on a work order system created by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. People needing assistance could call 211 to ask for help and the operator would go through a series of questions about their needs. Do they have power? Can volunteers help them with cleanup? Do they have fallen trees that need to be cleared? The operator could create the work order in the system and then relief agencies could assign themselves to the projects. The information is found on a map, so that projects could be in a concentrated area. Projects were color coded- red meant the project was unassigned, yellow meant it was assigned, green meant completed. There were also indications as to the type of work that needed to be complete. This seemed a most efficient way to get the help to the people in the impacted communities. I was happy to have the training as it may be something that could also be used in north Texas should a disaster occur.  

Water and fruit are my friends

That evening I slept on the floor of the office space. I was overcome by a terrible stomach ache. I attributed that to the poor eating habits I had acquired while on the assignment. I never drink coffee and I had 2 cups. I had been eating fast food and few healthy items at all. I resolved to take much better care of myself for the rest of the response.  More fruits and vegetable, and lots of water. This helped tremendously.

Thank you AmeriCorps St. Louis

The next morning all of the groups gathered for breakfast in the cafeteria/basement area. Each group was responsible for their own meals and had storage space in the church kitchen. I asked the AmeriCorps leader Lisa if I could give her team something at their morning meeting. You see, AmeriCorps Alums of North Texas (http://americorpsalumsnorthtexas.wordpress.com/) of which I am a part had conducted a September 11th commemoration project in which we created thank you cards to two specific groups. We made cards for Veterans and for AmeriCorps 

Opening their cards

members serving on disaster relief assignment. I was just able to give them their cards in person rather than having to mail them. I really enjoyed their smiles and laughter as they opened them. Most of the cards had been written by alums like myself who had served previously and just wanted to encourage the members during challenging circumstances. It was great to see a project through to completion.  The St. Louis group really seemed to like them and it was a good start to the day. 


Afterwards I had to make arrangements for setting up a meeting with Mary Beth Guyther, Program Officer with the Long Island 

Meeting with the Long Island
Foundation

Community Foundation. She was meeting with LIVC to ascertain the needs the community might have and to learn about the response. I had to coordinate with Karl Acker caretaker from the Hicksville Methodist Church to find a meeting space as the basement area was regularly used for a food and clothing pantry on Friday mornings during the specific time we needed to meet.  I was quite pleased to be an active participant in the meeting. I was able to provide information on the Hurricane Sandy Response (using much of

Food and Clothing Pantry 

the information provided from Phoebe, Matt, Diana, and Pat) as well as share from my previous experiences with disasters on a large scale and I also spoke of the work being done in North Texas. She had a lot of questions and the meeting ran well past the hour she had initially allotted.  Afterwards I participated in another VOAD conference call and provided updates while Sara Hamilton, from Boston Cares conducted training with Pat and Anna Lyons (another dear member of LIVC that I met just

HandsOn Connect Training

 that day). Sara was helping them learn the finer points of HandsOn Connect a Salesforce based system that would allow volunteers to sign up for posted service opportunities.  While LIVC had already been using this system, Sara knew all of the bells and whistles and helped Anna and Pat learn more tricks of the trade to make it easier to post things and to get some templates made for upcoming posting with the Nechama group and others. 

Such a blessing

I am immensely grateful to Pat for taking me in for the next three days. While the church was a kind and considerate 

My home away from home in NY

accommodation, I was blessed to be provided with an actual bed to sleep in in her beautiful home in Cold Spring Harbor, NY.  She and her daughter (law student extraordinaire) allowed me to stay in their guest room.  That evening Pat took me to a local pizza place where I was able to get "real" New York pizza. As we drove to her home she showed me the giant trees that had fallen all around and that had at one time taken down power lines and blocked roadways.  There were piles and piles of wood everywhere. People in the area won't exactly be looking for firewood this winter. 

AmeriCorps St. Louis
builds a registration area

Tools for cleanup efforts

Volunteers of all ages and ethnicity

Handing out
personal protective equipment
like gloves and dust masks

The next day (Saturday, November 17th) as there were no meetings scheduled for LIVC and Diana and Pat were otherwise committed I made arrangements to go to Long Beach with the AmeriCorps St. Louis group.  I was quite excited to get a chance to be "in the field" with an AmeriCorps team and to be working directly with volunteers. The team was setting up an area for registration when Pat dropped me off (not only did she provide a roof over my head, she was also an amazing chauffeur).   I was surprised to find the Indiana Department of Homeland Security had a mobile

Sending volunteers
out to do surveys

Long Beach grid for
volunteer assignments

command center and several trailers of supplies on the site. A group I had never heard of called Humanity First (http://www.humanityfirst.org/ an organization started by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community) was leading the efforts to get volunteers out to help

with the response. There were 6 main projects for the day- home cleanup, street cleanup, beach cleanup, donations sorting, feeding with the Red Cross, and door-to-door surveys in conjunction with the police department. Next 

Command Center from 

Stuff  in the stands of the
ice rink

door to the Volunteer Site where I was working was the Ice Skating rink where they were taking donations of all kinds. The piles of donations were taller than my head and completely filled the stands. Volunteers were working furiously to sort through things, but I don't believe and army of volunteers working night and day would be able to get through all of the stuff that was in that ice rink. Like ever. I find donations management to be a particularly difficult part of any disaster. People mean well and want to help, but dealing with the stuff while maintaining health standards is virtually impossible . It's a mess. However, I did get some ideas that might help with donations management planning in North Texas from the Volunteer Fairfax team. 

Debris moved to the curb
 in Long Beach

Piles of Debris in Long Beach

More than 500 volunteers came through the area that day and were assigned to projects. I was struck by the religious, ethnic and diversity of ages that were participating. I saw everyone from Southern Baptists to the Church of Scientology (who have very fancy jackets). Little kids to older folks. Everyone pitching in as best they could. 

Long Beach 

What moved me the most was the smiles on the faces of the 
volunteers as they dropped off tools and gloves. People who did not know each other at the beginning of the day were laughing and joking with one another at the end of the day. It seemed as if they did not want the day to end. I loved working with the AmeriCorps St. Louis team. They reminded me so much of the National Civilian Community Corps Teams I had worked with years before. They seemed like such a close and cohesive team that truly enjoyed working with one another. They also seemed to be very low key and flexible when it came to disaster and that is incredibly crucial. Every time the situation changed, they adapted and did so with positive attitudes and eagerness. 

Damaged pier with debris on shore.

Tree in local park near
Cold Spring Harbor

Sunday, November 18th our schedule started a little later in the day, so Pat took me around to see some areas that had been impacted by the storm. I got to see the beach and a pier that had been damaged by the storm with parts washed up along the shore. I was thankful to get to several beautiful areas of Long Island, but it was marred by reminders of the storm along the way. The rest of the day was spent in the office at the church working on posting volunteer opportunities, following up with organizations who needed support and helping to create reports on the LIVC response from the early stages of the disaster.  

Long Island VOAD Long Term
Recovery Committee Meeting

Monday morning began with a meeting of the Long Island VOAD Long Term Recovery Committee (LTR). It was very well attended with approximately 45 people representing about 40 agencies present.  It was nice to put faces with the names of all of the people from the conference calls. I really enjoyed seeing Gwen again who ran a very informative and efficient meeting. Topics included unmet needs, donations management, matching funding with needs, disaster mental health, disaster case management, an overview of some FEMA programs, and discussion of upcoming training for long term recovery. There was also an application process for participation in the LIVOAD Long Term Recovery Committee and a request for volunteers to lead these efforts.  While it was still early in the process for LTR, I was encouraged by the 

participation and knowledge of the people in the room. 

Long Island Volunteer
Center office

Long Island Volunteer Center

After the meeting Pat took me to see the actual Long Island Volunteer Center. Their office is on the fourth floor of a home that had been converted into office space primarily used by lawyers. I was glad to have gotten the chance to meet Anne who was there answering phone calls and returning messages. Pat and Anne swapped stories of the disaster with one another as most of the staff had been scattered throughout the response. While each of them took on different responsibilities, I got the sense that just seeing each other and sharing was comforting. In fact, this was the sense I got in each of the meetings I had participated in. That they all really liked working together and their compassion for the community was overwhelming. They absolutely had frustrations and most of them were uncertain as to where the next stage of the response would take them, but they were determined and wouldn't give up.  

One of hundreds of
fallen trees

After stopping by the office, Pat then showed me the neighborhood where Diana lived where the trees looked as if they had been knocked down by angry giants walking down the street. One after another we saw the remaining trunks with root balls the size of small cars sticking up out of the ground. The trees had ripped up sidewalks and in at least one case ruptured a gas line that caused a fire in a home less than a block from Diana's. I just admire the determination it takes to sustain a response with the reminders constantly surrounding you. I have helped with disasters many times, but never one while being personally affected. 

Me and Diana

Me and Pat

As she drove me to the airport at the end of my time with the Long Island Volunteer Center, Diana told me a story of the scallop shell that is the symbol for the LIVC. It is a symbol from the Camino de Santiago which is a large network of ancient pilgrim routes across Europe and coming together at the tomb of St. James. People take the journey for many reasons and must rely on the kindness of others to take them in and help them along the way. At the end of their journey they receive a scallop shell to symbolize the journey.  I was allowed to pick my scallop shell to commemorate the end of this journey. 

I was reluctant to leave. They had just gotten the approval to begin the process to open the Volunteer Reception Center the day I was leaving. I knew they had a long road ahead of them and I wouldn't be there to help. I know the support I provided was valuable, but it certainly wasn't as much as I would have liked to have given. I assured them they could contact me if there was anything I could do from back in Texas.  I hope they do.