No one had ever seen anything like it.
As more than 10 inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours, swaths of Johnson County were flooded. Entire city blocks were underwater, dams failed and neighborhoods were cut off from help. Residents had to be rescued by boat, and hundreds of homes were destroyed.
The entire county was impacted by the disaster. And as community leaders watched it unfold, they realized they had no precedent or framework to address the need.
“Since this was the first major disaster in our time period, people wanted to help, and weren’t sure how to do it,” said Bea Northcott, an original board member of Johnson County Community Organizations Active in Disasters.
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Johnson County Community Organizations Active in Disasters was formed in the weeks following the flood of 2008. Over the course of that summer and beyond, they helped more than 540 households recover and coordinated almost 19,000 hours of volunteer time.
The work that organizers completed that summer helped created a protocol the county could follow in future disasters. Training programs are scheduled to prepare for tornadoes, fires, flood or another emergency.
Disaster simulations help officials from throughout the county approach a variety of different emergencies.
“We’re much better prepared, because we have all of the policies, the infrastructure, to step in quickly next time,” Northcott said.
The enduring images from the aftermath of the flood is a community coming together in the face of tragedy. As people whose homes were completely waterlogged, who lost most of their possessions, came back to assess the damage, flocks of volunteers came forward to help.
People donated clothing, furniture, water, cleaning supplies and money to be given to flood victims. They cleared out ruined carpet and drywall, hauled furniture and scrubbed away the remnants of the noxious floodwaters.
In the immediate weeks after the flood, about 850 volunteers were assigned to assist at 325 different homes.
“People were willing to help. They were willing to put aside their own professional or personal gain and ask, ‘What do you need?’” Northcott said.
Coordination needed
But while that community spirit was apparent from the start, the coordination needed to effectively use it needed to be created from scratch.
Even before the flooding started, the county’s emergency response was put to the test. A tornado struck southern Johnson County, tearing apart homes and businesses around Edinburgh.
Officials were already dealing with more than 100 damaged homes and buildings when the rains moved in.
For an unprecedented disaster, the county responded quickly. A Red Cross relief center was opened at Community Church of Greenwood the day of the flood.
Two days later, the United Way of Johnson County brought together more than 60 representatives from county agencies, local governments and area churches to plan the response. The Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters, an Indiana group that provides leadership to communities dealing with disasters, laid the groundwork for a long-term recovery.
“What we really had to organize was, there are groups that in a disaster, they do certain things. I will be the first to say that United Way was on a very-fast track learning,” said Nancy Lohr Plake, executive director of the United Way of Johnson County.
A donation center was established where people could donate clothes, cleaning supplies, furniture and other items that victims of the flood could pick up for free. A Red Cross volunteer center was set up at Franklin College to help coordinate people who wanted to help with the clean-up and get them to the places that needed assistance most.
“The community came together. I can’t emphasize enough the help that came together and came into our community. People from all over the country came in to just help. That was overwhelming,” Plake said.
Gateway Services transported supplies throughout the county, taking blankets, cleaning supplies, food and other items to people that had no way to get to the donation center in Franklin.
“When the phones were down, United Way got us all together and had us deliver messages by bus if we needed to,” said Becky Allen, transportation manager at Gateway Services. “We had volunteer drivers and we’d take supplies from Franklin to Edinburgh and up to the White River Township area.”
The immediate response to the flood was swift. But community leaders, business owners and agencies knew that a long-term relief response would be necessary to help people rebuild. A follow-up meeting on June 26, again organized by the United Way, was the start of JCCOAD.
“What we were trying to do was build the infrastructure to address the issues while we were dealing with the disaster,” said Northcott, who was the group’s interim director when it formed. “We had to develop the structure for committees for construction and outreach, so we could let people know what resources were, to set up a case management system, so we could help people.”
Overseeing the recovery
The United Way of Johnson County was awarded a pair of grants from Indiana Association of United Ways, through the Lilly Endowment to assist with flood relief. The first grant was for $100,000, used immediately to set up and staff JCCOAD. The county was also approved for a grant of up to $4.16 million from the Indiana Natural Disaster Fund, though the county only used $2.6 million of it.
Those funds were meant to support full-time staff overseeing the recovery, pay for construction management and assistance to homeowners, and for case management through Gateway Services.
The organization worked with landlords and rental properties to line up places for displaced families to stay while their own homes were repaired.
JCCOAD operated in earnest until December 2010, when the Lilly Endowment grants ran out. Over that time, they managed the repair and construction of 172 homes, and reimbursed people from 65 households for the work that had been done.
More than 70 people received help replacing appliances, 89 got money for furniture and 143 households were given immediate help for costs such as rent and utilities.
More than 900 cases were opened through the group, Northcott said.
“It was huge numbers, people who were just devastated,” she said.
Even though the initial grant ran out for JCCOAD at the end of 2010, a core group of board members continued to meet to work on the remaining home construction projects and buyouts.
“We asked ourselves, when there is something else, how are we going to be prepared? We thought about the lessons we learned from our experience, and how can we become an agency that can really step in,” Northcott said.
Because of the protocols and steps they established following the floods, JCCOAD could be fully operational and helping plan relief within 24 to 48 hours after a disaster, Northcott said.
If the county commissioners declare a state of disaster, emergency management officials would determine if a long-term recovery effort was needed.
“The experience in 2008 gave the (emergency management agency) a big wake up call on managing volunteers and the importance of having an annex to our county’s emergency management plan for long-term recovery to disasters,” said Stephanie Sichting, the county’s emergency management director. “The EMA office could not handle the volunteers along with our other responsibilities after a disaster. (JCCOAD) is a great partner for me.”
The board members practice what to do in case of an emergency. They’ve compiled a manual instructing how to start a volunteer center, and have agreements in place with churches, libraries and other locations throughout the county to set up a center quickly, Northcott said.
The organization also has also focused on training residents to be part of a Community Emergency Response Team. People learn how to respond to and cope with the aftermath of a disaster in their own neighborhoods throughout the course of a 16-hour workshop. They figure out how to turn off gas lines, put out small fires, provide basic first aid and assess the overall situation.
Using the skills they’ve learned, they can serve as an immediate resource until a larger emergency response arrives, Northcott said.
“These people would really be the first responders, on the scene in their neighborhood,” she said.
All of the work after the flood has put JCCOAD in a much better position to respond to a disaster in the community. Steps are in place so that when the next emergency occurs, the response will be immediate and well-organized.
But vigilance is still required, Northcott said. Disasters are unpredictable, and the existing preparations are based entirely on emergencies that have already happened.
“I think we’re really, really prepared for another flood or a tornado, because we’re used to that. But I don’t know if we’re prepared for something else — an earthquake, or something else. We are prepared, but every situation is something different,” Northcott said.
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Community Emergency Response Team training
What: Johnson County residents can attend a free training to learn how to respond to local disasters.
Who: Sponsored by Johnson County Community Organizations Active in Disasters
When: 7 to 8:30 p.m. June 26, 28 and July 10, 17, 19 and 24. Participants must attend all class sessions to receive their certification.
Where: Greenwood Christian Church, 2045 Averitt Road
What will you learn: How to manage utilities and put out small fires; provide basic medical aid or other immediate assistance to victims in their area; search for and rescue victims safely; organize themselves and spontaneous volunteers to be effective, and collect disaster intelligence that will assist professional responders with prioritization and allocation of resources following a disaster.
To register: Call 317-560-4188 or email [email protected] with your name, phone number and email address.
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