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Te-floating-button-container > div idParticipants at Tuesday’s catastrophe exhibition at the Palm Coast Community Center were greeted by a little hill of emergency-preparedness kits. (FlaglerLive) The catastrophe exhibition that Flagler Volunteer Services, with funding from Flagler Cares, held yesterday at the Palm Coast Community Center is the only one of its kind in America, likely in Florida, if not in Flagler County.
As Tropical Storm Erin was growing into the season’s first major hurricane over 1,000 miles to the east, Flagler County Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord saw the irony. He stated, “I don’t believe any other county does it that way.”
“But it’s also how you look at the word expo,” Lord said, as the Sunshine Room, the Community Center’s largest, was already packed with residents, non-profits, government agencies, volunteers (thanks to the lavish and complimentary breakfast), and a preferred private company or two lining two sides of the space. Expo is therefore by its very nature a celebration of whatever it is that you are showcasing. Expo is really merely a means of bringing people together in this context. In particular, it has to do with education.
Flagler Volunteer Services has a $1,100 monthly contract with emergency management to support the development of volunteer programs and community engagement. They assist us in our training. Because they employ volunteers to forcibly multiply, they provide us with outreach assistance that far outweighs $1,100 each month, according to the Lord. In actuality, this incident is the result of that deal.
The American Red Cross awarded a $143,000 Long-Term Recovery Grant to Flagler Volunteer Services, the social services non-profit and coordinating agency, as part of the recovery operations after Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024. The two organizations will collaborate to identify unmet needs in the aftermath of the storms and to establish a community-based, sustainable disaster recovery and readiness network in Flagler County with this support, according to a release issued after the grant was awarded. To improve the county’s long-term catastrophe resilience, they will work together to link businesses, NGOs, faith-based organizations, and individual volunteers.
That was the main focus of Tuesday’s expo. (With the funds, the event was organized by Flagler Volunteer Services, which also employed Danielle Anderson as the Long-Term Recovery Lead and Jay Sanchez as the Disaster Preparedness Lead.) Despite being the first of its kind in Flagler County, Lord was persuaded to relocate here and serve as the county’s emergency management director years ago by the kind of community that makes these events feasible. I’m not sure if everyone standing here is a volunteer, but it was this community, our vibrant senior community, that initially piqued my interest in Flagler County, according to Lord.
The main objective is just to inform the public, stating things like, “Hey, listen, we are at risk for disasters, particularly hurricanes,” according to the Lord. These local resources can assist you in improving your readiness.
Over half of the audience remained by the end of the three-hour event, and a dozen and a half people, many of whom were well-known in the community, spoke to the packed house. Lord, Sheriff Rick Staly, Carrie Baird, the executive director of Flagler Cares, David Bossardett, the safety coordinator for Flagler schools, Amy Carotenuto, the executive director of the Flagler Humane Society, and of course, Suzy Gamblain, the longtime director of Flagler Volunteer Services, were among the speakers. The Florida Commission on Community Service, popularly known as Volunteer Florida, presented her with an Excellence in Volunteerism award.
The incident wasn’t groundbreaking since, unless you’re new to Florida or Flagler County, you’ve probably heard this every year at least six times in the media and a few dozen times on reliable social media: As stated by Staly, “if you decide to stay and your house is flooding or something happens, we can’t get to you,” the sheriff stated, “because once the winds sustain at 40 miles an hour, we’ll pull in our deputies because it’s not safe for them.” However, be ready; mandatory evacuation does not necessarily mean mandatory. The Humane Society offers its own storm-preparedness services to its people, shelters are open to everyone, including pets, and so on.
The local collaboration between public safety and public service agencies was particularly appreciated by the sheriff. He described his previous experience in Orange County and remarked, “It is not common.” We all get along, so it’s very good, but this is a whole new world for public safety, he said. To complete the task and benefit the community, we all collaborate.
One such organization is Flagler Beach’s Flagler Strong, whose volunteers, as co-founder Traci Callahan-Hennessey put it, “came out of the wreckage of Hurricane Matthew when the barrier island was cut off from the rest of the county and numerous people needed help in their homes.” She claimed that no one was coming and that the entire village was without electricity. We simply began knocking on doors to see how our neighbors were doing. In 2022, the group expanded its services and became a non-profit. To raise funds, it operates a weekly farmers market on South 2nd Street.
Strangely missing, though, were members of local government other than Lord, like city managers or officials, who could have offered a more practical and direct examination of municipal reactions—or lack thereof—in the immediate wake of crises. So it continued, with Mike Boylan of the renowned and well-liked Mike’s Weather Page among the speakers. Don’t pay attention to the number of storms that are expected, he advised. When it occurs, concentrate on being ready and responding appropriately.
As a result, participants were greeted at the Sunshine Room’s entry by a little mound of readiness bags. They were able to assist themselves. They would discover a small first aid kit, matches, a roll of paper towels, a roll of toilet paper, tiny pellets of compressed towels, an emergency blanket in a little sleeve, flushable wipes, Narcan (the neutralizing agent in the event of an overdose or other medical issues), and more. A storm was all that was lacking.
