FEMA to speak Tuesday on disaster relief

    Karla Mongan from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will visit the United Methodist Church in Washington Tuesday to speak about creating a new organization to address disasters in the county. The event begins at 7 p.m. and is open to the public.

    The organization is known as ?COAD,? which stands for ?Community Organizations Active in Disaster.? According to FEMA?s Web site, a COAD is an umbrella organization that exists to bring people together to prepare for disasters. It does not provide services directly, but does provide a network through which individuals coordinate their relief efforts to prevent duplication of services.

    The Reverend Julie Poulsen, who is the minister at the Methodist Church in Washington and who helped organize the event, said a COAD will perform a different function from what the first responders perform during a disaster.

    ?The COAD will focus more on long-term assistance,? said Poulsen. ?We need to provide help to people affected by things like tornadoes so they can get their lives going again.?

    Representatives of the Red Cross and the Iowa Department of Human Resource Council (IDHRC) are also planning to speak at the meeting about how their organizations could be of service as part of a COAD.

    Larry Smith, the emergency management coordinator for Washington and Keokuk counties, said he expects to see between 40 and 60 people at the event. He said he wants to stress that the COAD is not simply for the city of Washington but for the entire county. 

    Smith said that most of the disasters that Washington County prepares for are weather-related.

    ?We normally worry about tornadoes, ice storms and flash floods,? said Smith. ?But we also have to prepare for things like major fires, virus outbreaks and animal diseases such as hoof and mouth disease.?  

    Smith said there needs to be a way to manage volunteers during a crisis so that no one is doing anything redundant or counterproductive. He said that a COAD could bring increased communication between volunteers to ensure goods are sent to where they are needed. 

For the full story, see the Nov. 9 edition of The Washington Evening Journal