Second COAD meeting to be held Tuesday

    Residents of Washington County will once again discuss the creation of a county-wide disaster relief organization at 7 p.m. in St. James Church in Washington Tuesday. The meeting will be about taking the necessary steps to creating a COAD, which is a collection of community organizations that assist disaster victims.

    Larry Smith, chairman of the Washington Emergency Management Commission, said he hopes to hear plenty of new ideas on Tuesday.

    ?We plan to talk about how we can distribute available resources after a disaster,? said Smith. ?We will also get a few other things ironed out like future meeting dates and the tasks each of us needs to work on. It?s important that all the duties don?t fall on just two or three people.?

    Tuesday?s meeting will be the second meeting held in Washington to discuss creating a COAD. The first meeting was held on Nov. 10 in the Methodist Church. At that meeting, a representative of FEMA named Karla Mongan spoke about what needs to be done to create a COAD. Mongan is expected to attend Tuesday?s meeting at St. James Church as well.

    Communication is a key element both in preparing for a disaster and in recovering from one. Smith said that will be another focus of the meeting on Tuesday.

    ?We will set up phone trees as a way to get messages out. At the same time, each community needs to step up and alert us if there is a problem. We assume no news is goods news. If three towns have a need, we have to know how we can use our scarce resources to accommodate that need. We need good communication so that we know which communities to focus on.?

    Smith noted that residents tend to focus on protecting their own health and well-being, which he said is only human.

    ?During a disaster, our first reaction is to protect our own life,? said Smith. ?If your house were affected, you?d be focused on that instead of helping the whole town. But when the disaster is over, it?s important that we get volunteers who will help others in need.?

    While the recent round of blizzards seemed like a disaster, Smith said that even if the county had a COAD it would not likely have been called upon during the blizzards.

For the full article, see our Jan. 11 print edition.