Learnings from Hurricane Ian
It’s been a little more than a month since Hurricane Ian made landfall on the west coast of Florida, and we’re back home after setting up camp in Charlotte County to support families of first responders and county employees involved in recovery efforts.
Responding to Hurricane Ian has given us new perspective. The sheer scale of devastation wrought by the storm is hard to fathom – estimates have put economic damages at more than $50 billion – but numbers such as these verge on abstraction and fail to capture what it’s like to be on the ground.
Hearing stories of the hurricane and seeing the aftermath firsthand begin to tell a more complete picture of the event. One parent said every stop sign in Charlotte County had been flattened by the winds. A child told us about being afraid a door would blow open during the storm and the change in pressure would shatter all the windows in her house. We saw boats in harbors along the coast strewn about and piled high like oversized bits of kindling.
Standing up camp in the midst of such widespread damage was a challenge. While we found a great partner in Charlotte County Government and were able to provide some 2,000 hours of trauma-informed childcare for the community, there were hurdles along the way.
The most difficult aspect of the response was navigating our way through a new system of bureaucracy in a new state. It was our first deployment in Florida and making inroads with government officials and community leaders in the aftermath of a storm of this magnitude was a tremendous challenge. We’ve talked a lot about the importance of networks and organizing communities proactively to prioritize the needs of children and families during disasters, and without those relationships and plans in place it took more time and effort to get camp up and running despite an overwhelming need.
While there were challenges, we were also able to develop some incredible relationships with other organizations and partners along the way.
Save the Children was a phenomenal resource for us from the outset, providing intel on where to set up camp, volunteers to help us care for the kids once we were up and running, and financial backing to help us keep doing this work. Barbara Ammirati and the entire crew helping to run their operation in Florida were integral to our success, and we can’t thank them enough for their support.
We were also fortunate enough to connect with an incredible group of partners at Walt Disney World Resort, who went above and beyond to help ensure we have the resources to provide joy to kids impacted by disasters like Hurricane Ian going forward. They also sent over Mickey Mouse plushies for the children at our camp in Port Charlotte, bringing smiles to everyone who walked through our doors. Huge thanks to Tajiana Ancora-Brown, Stefanie Steele, Nelson M. Placa, and the whole team at Disney who made it happen.
The most-rewarding aspect of the response was being able to see how providing care for children of first responders in the community supercharged the recovery effort. We had kids whose parents were working around the clock to help get schools up and running, repair critical infrastructure, and keep hospitals and fire stations open. Being able to support the frontline efforts to bring normalcy back in the wake Hurricane Ian showed us the true potential of Project:Camp. We know there is still more work to be done, and we can’t wait to continue demonstrating how crucial childcare is to an effective and efficient recovery.
With gratitude,
Mikey
Bulliten Board
We would be remiss to not give a massive shoutout to our two favorite Texas Division of Emergency Management VALs Courtney Goss and Denise Treadwell, who were our guardian angels while tasked with helping the recovery efforts during Hurricane Ian. Denise and Courtney were a huge factor in helping us find a place to set up camp and worked tirelessly behind the scenes to support us.
The Project:Camp family is growing! We are beyond thrilled to announce that our Deputy Director Ozzie Baron and his wife Reshma Pattni welcomed a healthy baby girl into the world on October 2nd. We have it on good authority that Zora Devi Pattni-Baron is roughly the size of a Yorkshire terrier these days and just as feisty. We can't wait to be taking orders from her in the very near future!
Our Executive Director Mikey Latner was privileged to be able to attend and give a presentation at this year’s Western Association of Independent Camps Conference in Indian Wells last weekend. We saw a lot of familiar faces and talked about how camps can play an important role in the disaster response ecosystem. Looking forward to next year already!
