Help St. John Prepare

On May 14th, Love City Strong proudly hosted the first in-person Hurricane Preparedness Fair since 2019. We were joined by our nonprofit, government, and private sector partners including VITEMA, The American Red Cross, St. John Rescue, St. John COAD and the Small Business Development Center. Attendees enjoyed a variety of dishes provided by local vendors, a performance by the Dynamic Dancers, and activities to help kids build their own preparedness kits. 

At LCS, preparedness is a year round practice. However, this is the time of year to be extra vigilant. Threats from hurricanes include powerful winds, heavy rainfall, storm surges, coastal and inland flooding, rip currents, tornadoes, and landslides. Hurricanes can often undergo rapid intensification, meaning they can quickly gain strength before and as they make landfall. For this reason, it’s important to begin preparation well in advance of an incoming storm. 

Your continued support allows us maintain our existing hurricane season protocols, and develop new ways to engage with the community about the importance of preparedness. Resilient communities benefit from collaboration and cooperation. We are so grateful that you have chosen us as a recipient of your generosity.

Following the impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, Love City Strong’s mission developed to focus on immediate response and recovery to major hurricane impacts, as well as future preparedness for the same type of event. Since then, our preparedness programming has grown to include scalable solutions, as we’ve learned to tailor our responses to smaller hurricanes and tropical storms. In 2020, our anticipated shift towards a more all-hazards approach became necessarily more focused on pandemic preparedness and response as COVID-19 impacted the Territory. 

Many lessons have been learned in the past two years about the way we prepare and respond in a COVID-era environment, but the core of our work remains constant. More than ever, the island’s ability to self-sustain in times of crisis is critical. We must continue to stay nimble in the face of climate change and related extreme weather, including not only increasingly intense tropical cyclones but also rising sea levels and increased periods of drought, as well as no-notice events like earthquakes and tsunamis. 

In 2022 we will continue our community outreach efforts by updating our Immediate Needs Survey data, canvassing residents island-wide to assess their needs and their readiness for potential disasters. This data will be the basis for future programming specifically tailored to the needs of the community, and takes into account the data needs of our partners in the public and private sectors. 

As always, the Go Team is responsible for all the data collection and reporting for this incredibly important project. They are currently conducting interviews over the phone, and driving across the island to reach as many residents as possible. Reliable and up to date data is crucial to the development of future programming, and none of our work would be possible without your continued support.