Are we ready?

Dear Community,

I don’t normally send emails to share my feelings so please hear my heart as you read this note.

Probably like you, I have been watching the devastation that hurricane Dorian has wreaked on the Bahamas and now on the east coast.  In spite of our natural and human caused disasters, I believe we have been truly blessed in southern California. 

Every time something occurs in another part of this country or globally I do at least three things:

• I pray for everyone who is impacted and all who are risking their lives to help.
• I give to help those affected.
• I thank God that we have not seen the wide spread devastation like other areas including northern California.

The next thing I do is ask these questions:  What will we do when that type of devastation does occur in southern California?Are we ready?  After eight years of helping faith and community based organizations prepare to respond and recover, I still do not believe we are ready for what we are seeing in the Bahamas or what happened during hurricane Harvey or Irma or the fire in Paradise, CA or any of the others.  No, we probably won’t see a hurricane but one day San Andreas or another fault will shake and we will see similar devastation.

Please prepare your homes, houses of worship, community centers, businesses and schools for all types of disasters!  Every mass shooting that has occurred has left people saying, “I never thought it would happen here.”

Please get ready to help your local community!  I am asking everyone to make a renewed commitment to identify how you can help.  If you have not done so, please:

1.  Connect with the local emergency management for your city, town or county.  Develop a relationship with them and work together to identify how your organization can help.  Let me know if you are not sure who to contact for your area.

2.  Get connected with an organization that is approved to help with response and recovery such as your local Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD).  Here’s the contact information for Riverside County VOAD (Michelle Kelly, michelle,kelly@rivco.org, 951-955-5665) and San Bernardino County VOAD (Yomar Cleary, sbcountyvoad@gmail.com, https://www.sbcovoad.org/, 909-492-0185) or a VOAD member agency such as Building Resilient Communities.

3. Complete the proper training to help with the services that will be most needed like emotional and spiritual care, donations management and volunteer coordination.  The state level donations and volunteer management class is being held in Rancho Cucamonga on September 18 & 19th.  This is a critical class for any house of worship or community based organization that wants to help with these services. Please see the flyer for further details.  Register at  https://ruasi.org/EBForms.aspx?EBID=112&EBType=WLR&RefID   Please plan to attend the 7th Annual Ark of Safety Forum on Thursday, October 10th.  Join other faith, community, government, education and business leaders to discuss preparedness, response and recovery for the Inland Empire.  This is an opportunity to talk about how we can work together for the good of our communities.  It’s an opportunity to strengthen partnerships and relationships with one another before the next disaster strikes!

There will be several agencies providing information on how you can get involved, including Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) groups from some of the cities, towns and counties. Now is the time for us to plan, train and exercise our plans.  Let’s not wait until the devastation happens.  It will be too late! Register at https://7tharkofsafetyforum.eventbrite.com Thank you for listening!  Thank you for taking action!  We can all make a difference when we work together. I pray peace and safety over you and your household. Debra Williams, CEO Phone: (909) 283-6872 info@buildingresilientcommunities.org www.buildingresilientcommunities.org