Group focuses on disaster recovery

Area officials, social service agencies, emergency operations and charitable organizations have come together to strengthen an areawide disaster effort in Cape Girardeau, Perry and Scott counties.

A group of 30 organizations, including FEMA and SEMA representatives, formed the Community Organizations Active in Disaster committee, or COAD, in Southeast Missouri after the 1993 Midwest floods, according to committee member Nancy Jernigan.

COAD focuses on the response and recovery phases in disasters by working with FEMA, SEMA and local EMA representatives to help disaster victims find local resources to help them find housing, food, medical attention and other items immediately following an event.

The group's latest effort focuses on assisting Hurricane Katrina victims living in the area with the help of the subcommittee, Jernigan said. Jernigan is executive director of the United Way of Southeast Missouri.

"We found that victims were going to be heading this way. We realized we needed to have a plan in place," she said.

The committee worked together to help those individuals get their lives back together.

"We're trying to get the word of the plan out," she said. "It's a new plan we've just started. It's still a work in progress."

Long-term recovery efforts of those affected by disasters is a big part of COAD, Jernigan said.

In the new plan, victims are first connected to a case manager to assess their needs, Jernigan said. Then local agencies provide assistance.

"It's to help those people in Southeast Missouri who have settled here," she said. "We have local dentists do local work or whatever is needed."

Margaret Cash, of the Southeast Missouri Katrina Recovery, is caseworker for COAD.

"According to our records, we have about 150 people in our area" from Louisiana who were displaced due to the hurricane, she said.

"Were just trying to help them to get back to where they were before, whether it's here or to go back," she said. "We know a lot have settled in our communities."

American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Cape Girardeau County Health Department, Community Counseling Center and Cape Girardeau and Jackson city and county officials are part of COAD, which for now serves four counties but will eventually cover the entire Bootheel, Jernigan said.

carel@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127