Behind the Disaster Relief Logo

Ever watch a duck gliding across a pond? It looks so calm and graceful. But if you look under the water you would see the duck’s feet paddling like crazy. Keep the duck in mind as we look behind the scenes at Ohio Disaster Relief.

It’s a Thursday morning and a strong storm swept across Ohio overnight bringing straight-line winds known as a derecho. The 70 mph winds have knocked out power and downed trees.

The phone rings and it’s a county emergency manager asking for Ohio Disaster Relief to send a chainsaw team to clear trees next week. Of course, we say yes. This is when the DR director’s feet start to paddle.

Step 1 is to locate an SBC church in the affected area that can handle the mission. The church must have sleeping space and restrooms for 25-40 people, an outside electric outlet and water hose hookup for the Quick Response Feeding Unit, and another outside electric outlet and water connection for the shower unit.
 
After a location is acquired, Step 2 is to recruit volunteers to serve on our teams. The off-site coordinator sends out a request for volunteers.

Multiple teams are necessary to stand up a location in Ohio. These include chaplains, damage assessors, an Incident Management Team, chainsaw teams, and a feeding team.

If needed, Ohio Disaster Relief will also deploy a communications team to set up a mobile satellite system if the cell or internet service is out, heavy equipment to lift logs and debris, and finally the shower unit which must be delivered, set up, and ready to use.
 
A deployment that looks like it should only involve an 8-person chainsaw team ultimately requires about 25 people. This number of people has to be secured every week until the mission closes.  

So, what’s the plan if we can’t recruit enough people from Ohio to make the mission happen? Then we call other state disaster relief directors and see if they can send teams to assist. The worst outcome is if we can’t field the teams needed and we have to tell people that we can’t help.
 
There are so many more pieces to the puzzle than most people never see. They include coordinating with local, state, and federal disaster agencies, coordinating with local partners, arranging the purchase of food, propane, and supplies, and organizing all the units and people that deploy from all over Ohio to one location.

It takes teams working together to allow Ohio DR to share the gospel of Jesus Christ through compassion ministry. If you are ready to get involved in helping people in crisis, then go to www.scbo.org/dr and get started. You don’t have to wait for the next training date – you can get started now.