South Carolina flooding becomes case study in community resiliency

Note: This post was republished from APHA's Annual Meeting Blog

When Hurricane Joaquin hovered over South Carolina in the fall of 2015 causing historic flooding, state residents — particularly in the Midlands region — had to quickly discover what they were made of.

In the midst of disaster, researchers from the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health saw an opportunity to see how residents acted and adapted to a life-changing event. They presented on their work during Monday’s Annual Meeting session “Response, Recovery and Resiliency: Understanding Public Health in Practice During and After the Flood of October 2015.”

Over 11 trillion gallons of water were dumped into the Midlands region of the state, said Heather Brandt, associate professor of health promotion, education and behavior at the Arnold School of Public Health.

“This is not something that’s becoming a 1,000-year flood,” Brandt said. “It’s becoming something far more routine and certainly climate change is playing a role in this.”

Social media played a large role in communicating the threat of floods, particularly from residents and media outlets, Brandt said. She and researchers examined tweets with the hashtag #SCFlood over four time periods, including 72 hours before Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, when residents were urged to leave areas at risk for flooding as well as the six months following the flooding from Oct. 15 through April 15. The most popular themes in tweets across all periods were about the natural environment, built environment and devastation.

Those connected on social media could glean information from Twitter about accessing FEMA assistance, resource donation, road closures and shelter availability. Access to this information contributed to the resiliency of affected residents.

“I had never seen so much bottled water in my life,” Brandt said. “We saw a lot of community resiliency coming forward and demonstrating support. People relying on each other, people visiting to play games with kids at the shelters, having shelters where people could bring family pets, not just dogs and cats.”

Communication was critical for response and recovery and crucial to residents building resiliency during and after the crisis, said Sayward Harrison, who studied community resilience during the flooding for the University of South Carolina’s SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality.

Harrison defined community resiliency as the “capability of a community to draw upon its individual, collective and institutional resources and competencies to cope with, adapt to and develop from the demands, challenges and changes encountered before, during and after disaster.”

In interviews of nearly 40 residents affected by the floods, Harrison brought up examples of that definition in action. Those included identifying a Spanish-speaking TV reporter in the Midlands region who could translate emergency messages to Hispanic residents, such as boil water advisories and stories of residents in affected neighborhoods who knew where vulnerable residents, such as seniors, lived so resources could be directed to them.

Another part of resiliency is post-traumatic growth — the change that comes as a result of trauma that involves developing a “new normal,” Harrison said.

“We’re thinking of ways we can build a stronger community,” Harrison told attendees. “People are used to the way things were but it’s good to have change.”

Having a family communication plan is key, especially during an emergency

Disasters can strike when you least expect them, and you may not be with your family when they happen. Having a family communication plan can help you get in contact with your loved ones during an emergency.

 

In our latest podcast, APHA’s Get Ready team speaks with Jeffrey Mitchell, clinical professor of emergency health services at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and co-founder of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, about the importance of including communications in family emergency preparedness planning.

 

“Make sure that you don’t make the plan so complex that people are not able to follow it,” Mitchell says. “It needs to be simple; it needs to be done with some degree of speed, and it has to be very effective so it works for the family system.”

 

Social media tools and text messaging can be fast, effective ways to communicate during a disaster, and Mitchell encourages incorporating them into your plan. Facebook and Twitter can be especially useful tools if you can’t get to a phone or if phone lines are down or overloaded, he noted. For family members who don’t use social media, it’s important to have other communication plans.

 

“If you have elderly people in the family who are not on the Internet, and they rely heavily on phone communication, then that needs to be built into the process as well,” he adds.

Here are some more things to consider when developing your family’s communication plan, courtesy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency:

• Make a contact card for each family member including children. Put it in your everyday wallet, purse, briefcase or backpack.
• Identify an out-of-town relative or family friend who can be another contact for your family, especially in the event of an evacuation. Make sure every member of your family knows the emergency contact’s information.
• Make sure every family member has a cellphone, money or a prepaid phone card to use for calls.
• If you have a cellphone, program your “in case of emergency” contact into your phone.
• Teach family members how to use text messaging, which can work around network problems that prevent a phone call from going through.
• Subscribe to alert services. Many communities have systems that send emails or text messages in the event of an emergency.

For more information, listen to the podcast or read the transcript. For more family preparedness tips, visit the Get Ready Parents page on our website.

‘Hey, where is everyone?’ Communicating with your family during disasters

Family making an emergency plan / FEMA

Have you ever planned an event with your friends or family? You decide where to meet and how to reach one another if someone is late or gets lost. You also pick someone to be in charge of transportation. Having plans in place ahead of time helps create a successful gathering.

Getting your family ready for an emergency is kind of like organizing a family activity. There are many similar things to think about: Do you have a plan if something goes wrong? Do you have supplies? Do you know where to meet or how to contact one another?

Chances are not all family members will be together when a disaster strikes, so it’s important to plan ahead. Talk to your family about what to do in advance of a disaster. This will help reduce fear and anxiety when things are tough.

Here are a few key tips for communicating with your family before and during disasters:

1. Meet with your family about why you need to prepare for disasters.
2. Talk about the types of disasters that are most likely to occur in your area.
3. Pick three places to meet based on each situation.
4. Develop a communications plan in case family members are separated from one another. Complete a contact card for each family member and place it in their wallet, purse, book bag or backpack.
5. Communicate with text messages during a disaster, as cell phone service may be out. Text messages often go through when a phone call might not.
6. Program your cell phone with your “ICE” contact, short for “in case of emergency.” Emergency workers will check for ICE contacts if something bad happens.  If you have put a lock on your phone, you might want to think about putting a sticker with your ICE contact on the back of your phone.

Everybody’s needs are different, but we can each take important steps to prepare our families for disasters. And communication is key.

For more information on preparing families for disasters, check out  American Red Cross’s Get a Kit. Make a Plan. Be Informed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Develop a Family Disaster Plan and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Family Emergency Plan Template.

APHA’s Get Ready campaign also offers a fact sheet for parents in English and Spanish to help your family make a plan.