Faith in Disaster: Responding to Hurricanes.
“A hurricane for the history books” - Hurricane Irma
“$26.5 billion in damage…17 foot storm surge…169mph gusts” - Hurricane Andrew
“$81 billion in damage…1 million people displaced…” - Hurricane Katrina
This was a great conversation! View the follow up article, information and video from the discussion Faith & Hurricanes: Plan. Prepare. Pray. Share.
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Fossil Fuel emissions have destabilized our climate. While there have always been hurricanes, our warming atmosphere and warming oceans combine to make hurricanes more frequent and intense. These powerful storms impact people and communities not only with winds and floods, but also with dislocation and loss.
As we start to understand the scope of the challenges we face, the next step is to better understand what faithfulness can look like when disaster strikes. Join us for information and conversation, we have some helps for worship communities as center hurricanes, their impacts, causes, and how to respond to rebuild, comfort, and keep the faith.
Tuesday, February 8th at 11:00am Pacific Time / 2:00pm Eastern Time join us for a conversation about hurricanes, both in readiness and in the aftermath. The Climate Cafe Multifaith welcomes four mighty movers when it comes to hurricanes, faith, and disaster response: Tricia Hall, Barbara Hassall, Trish Warren, and Kathy Broyard. Register.
Kathy Broyard is the Executive Director and Emergency Management Specialist for the Florida Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Network (FLAPDAN), a nonprofit organization working with the Florida churches and mid-councils of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Although her background is in music and audio engineering, surviving the wrath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 completely changed her career path. Ms. Broyard has worked in disaster preparedness, response and recovery for over 25 years in many different capacities. She is a long-time member of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance National Response Team and deploys to disasters around the country as needed. She has served as chairperson of Florida VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) and as a subject matter expert for Long Term Recovery Groups.
Barbara Hassall is an active member of the Presbytery of Tropical Florida, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She is the Chair of the Disaster Response and Preparation Task Force and is a commissioned PW/PDA Disaster Trainer. Additionally, she serves on the Board of Directors for the Florida Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Network (FLAPDAN), serving as the Irma Liaison for South Florida. She is also a member of the PTF Earth Care Task Force.
Outside of her work within the Presbytery and church, she is active in the Woman’s Club of Hialeah and BOLD Justice, an ecumenical justice ministry in Broward County, serving as its President.
Tricia Hall works as the Disaster Recovery Partnership & Grants Manager for the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church (FLUMC). She also does grant contracting work with two other disaster recovery centric non-profit entities. She has been involved in disaster recovery ministry since becoming an Early Response Team member in May of 2014. Over the past 8 years she has responded as a volunteer to multiple recovery/rebuild operations in Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and internationally in Belize and Haiti.
Tricia began her career in Disaster Recovery Ministry in November of 2017 through FLUMC’s response to hurricane Irma that impacted the entire state of Florida in September of 2017. In her role as Grants and Finance manager she helped the Conference Disaster Response Coordinator oversee the relief and long-term responses to 6 named storms, managing over $14.5 million in grants, donations, and assets.
Trish Warren is the Conference Disaster Response Coordinator for the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church and coordinates disaster response efforts with local organization as well as faith based networks such as UMCOR,
Trish often spends time in the middle of the faith community before and following extreme events attending to hurricane preparation and relief, but also crisis such as when the Champlain Towers collapse.
Register with Climate Cafe Multifaith to get the new date for this event as soon as it is recheduled. Take a minute also to look at our archives of previous Climate Cafes as we talk about climate change and center faith and justice.
Thank you to John Middelkoop for his photo from the 9th Ward. Find him on Unsplash.