Disaster Response Virgin Islands Project #49826

Help St. John Prepare

by Love City Strong, Inc.

Project Report | Jan 31, 2022
Updating Community Data for All Hazards Response

By Mae Agna | Development Director

Go Team member calling residents to update files

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.

Visiting homes to update resident information

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Oct 18, 2021
Staying Prepared!

By Mae Agna | Program Development and Donor Relations

LCS delivering sandbags to St. John residents

As an all-hazards preparedness and response organization, Love City Strong is extremely busy during the Atlantic Hurricane Season. Spanning from June 1st, to November 30th, the 2021 season has thus far been mercifully calm in our particular region of the Caribbean. We remain vigilant by improving our existing preparedness activities, and expanding our programming so that our response is more robust and comprehensive.

Some of our ongoing preparedness initiatives include managing our inventory of readiness supplies, and hiring seasonal on-call teams to assist with wellness checks and debris clearing in the event of a storm. Additionally, every year we support the Department of Public Works with an island-wide sandbag distribution. Sandbags are a simple but effective method of redirecting stormwater and debris away from homes to prevent flooding. At the end of July, the Love City Strong team delivered sandbags to the homes of St. John seniors and residents with access and functional needs.

Love City Strong is always thinking of creative solutions to potential issues caused by natural disasters, and this season we launched the “Ready in a Flash” program. Throughout the month of September, our Go Team assisted seniors in scanning their important personal documents to portable USB flash drives, ensuring that they have backups of these documents in the event that they are lost or damaged. Through this program we have assisted 30 households across St. John, and plan on offering this service every year moving forward. Preparing backups of important documents is just one simple task that can have a big impact for disaster survivors in the long run.

The climate crisis continues to impact communities across the globe, and it is evident that preparedness is no longer a seasonal activity, but a year round necessity. We are committed to being an active part of a prepared St. John, and none of our ongoing or future programs would be possible without the continued support of our donors. We thank you so much for your generosity.

Assisting DPW with sandbag distribution

Launching the "Ready in a Flash" program

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Jul 7, 2021
Preparing the Community by Training our Team

By Mae Agna | Program Development and Donor Relations

Here on St. John, the summer months are heralded with a sense of anticipation and anxiety. Hurricanes and other climate-related weather events are impacting communities like ours more frequently and more aggressively, and at Love City Strong we believe that community preparedness must accelerate in kind.

One of the pillars of our work in disaster response is the development of human resources. Year round, we focus on training and capacity building for our employees and our partners. Participation in training like CPR, First Aid, Stop the Bleed, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), HAM radio, and more ensures that we are effective as first responders.

Our emphasis on human resources also includes leveraging the skills and talents of our community. Each hurricane season, we onboard a group of on-call employees who undertake a wide range of training in preparation for deployment alongside our full time team in the event of a major disaster impact. The group is modeled after our core team; it consists of individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds, age groups, and locations across the island to better reflect the diversity of the St. John community.

This focus on local skill building serves three main purposes. First, it ensures that recovery and mitigation funds are spent on local businesses and residents. Second, it establishes a bench of on-island talent to mitigate the need for outside recovery workers. The third and most important purpose is providing a recognizable, trustworthy face for disaster survivors. Since our core employees and our on-call team are all St. John residents, they’re better equipped to understand what their friends and neighbors are going through when a disaster strikes. They can connect with survivors on a deeper level, and provide the assistance and resources that are right for them.

Your donations make our unique approach to preparedness and recovery possible, and the programs that you support are created and executed by our skilled and experienced team. Human resources are just as important as physical assets when it comes to an efficient and comprehensive response, if not moreso. We thank you for your continued generosity!

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