Dealing with Disaster in the Gulf

Note: Trent is an intern from Emory University's Candler School of Theology who participated in IRD US program management this summer. The following is a personal reflection from him after he attended the summit for case management agencies in the Gulf Region on dealing with the consequences of the BP oil spill.

Earlier this month, I attended the Mississippi Gulf Coast Disaster Recovery Summit at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast. It was a gathering of NGOs, religious organizations, businesses, and community leaders to tackle the largest ecological/technological disaster this country has seen. Representatives from along the coast came to learn, express their concerns, and collaborate resources. The South Mississippi Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (SMVOAD) organized the event and you can get general information about the conference and its speakers here.

I attended the Summit as a kind of "outsider". I grew up in the Midwest and won't try to claim that I understand life on the Coast. The fishing, the ecology, and lifestyle are all foreign to me and it was difficult to fully grasp the implications of this disaster from afar. Thus, for me the Summit was about education. I learned how people's lives are tied up with the Gulf and how this technological disaster is also an emotional disaster. It not only affects people's jobs but their livelihood and this came through in people's questions for panelists and sometimes emotional responses. People can rebuild after a hurricane, but this is fundamentally changing life along the Coast.

Though emotions were high as speakers would take us from hope to despair and back again, despair in the uncertain future was not the word of the day. Instead, there was hope in unity. The Summit focused on the things we can control. This was epitomized by the SMVOAD program, "Neighbor Helping Neighbor". Lori West, the regional director at IRD and VP of SMVOAD, presented the program which stressed the importance of working together. The program is a call for collaboration between individuals, NGO's, churches, and businesses to work together in responding to this disaster. When people come together in this way, there is no telling what recovery might look like. An event that took a realistic look at the difficult long-term effects was also an event that united organizations to work for the good and maximize resources. As an outsider I was not only impressed with the response, but I was touched by the way people care about this Coast, their communities, and the future recovery. The Coast will recover and it will happen because individuals and organizations like IRD are working together. NGOs, churches, businesses, and community leaders are all resolved and determined to face the challenges that lay ahead.

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