Because churches are on the front line of disaster relief, it's essential for clergy to set the example for disaster preparedness, according to a Church World Service disaster response consultant.
Peter Van Hook told local clergy on Wednesday that, "Every disaster is a disaster, but every community is different. Don't assume anything. Don't plan your way through a disaster: Prepare. I can assure you your plans will be utterly worthless in seconds."Van Hook knows whereof he speaks. He was called to Oklahoma City last year just hours after a bomb devastated the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. He stayed there for one week, helping local clergy and community leaders organize themselves to action.
"Until you've been in the middle of a disaster, you don't know how disastrous it is," Van Hook said. He defined a disaster as any event, natural or human-engineered, in which people are knocked out of their normal routines and experience a loss of control. He also classified three stages of disaster: rescue, relief and rehabilitation.
Van Hook, a minister and former rector of an Episcopal church, is director of nonprofit management programs at the University of Utah. Speaking to a group of clergy at the Salt Lake Ministerial Association's monthly meeting on Wednesday, he asked how many attendees stocked at least one flashlight in their sanctuary. Not many hands went up. Even fewer hands went up when he asked about fire extinguishers, first aid and/or 72-hour kits and CPR training.
While local churches typically get involved in the relief stage of any disaster, Van Hook said they have "a huge role" to play in the rehabilitation phase, too. The two most important questions congregations have to ask themselves regarding disaster preparedness are:
- Should there be an interfaith effort for assistance, and
- What should be done in the beginning of the relief effort?
"Salt Lake City, you've been very, very lucky," Van Hook told the small gathering, after urging them to think of the possibilities for disaster along the Wasatch Front. He reminded the clergy that forecasters have predicted an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or 9.0 along the San Andreas Fault for the past 10 years. He asserted that a quake of just 7.0 or 8.0 along the Wasatch Fault would kill 10,000 people outright.
"Every point of access in the state is by bridges built before the seismic codes were adopted," Van Hook said.
"If people would just take those basic steps (of preparedness), it would help rescue units tremendously. Churches were absolutely essential in Homestead, Fl. (after Hurricane Andrew), Oklahoma City (after the bombing) and at the apartment complex in Edison, N.J., (after a gas main broke and exploded in April 1994, displacing 200 families)," Van Hook said.
The lecture was the first of a three-part series on disaster preparedness in Utah. Zion Lutheran Church hosted the event.
Father Ron Thomas, vice president of programming for the Salt Lake Ministerial Association, said the series makes disaster preparedness easier in more than one way.
"It would prove to be a very fruitful endeavor if we (clergy) all know each other (first)," Thomas said. The lectures are the second Monday of every month. The next one, with a representative from the American Red Cross, is at Second Church of Christ Scientist, 1165 S. Foothill Drive.