Do you #GiveAHoot about helping our community recover from the flood?

On June 13, our community was struck with a major climate disaster when the Yellowstone River and its tributaries reached record-breaking levels. 

Since the flood waters started to rise, PCEC and our members have been on call to help, sandbagging, mucking and demoing flooded homes and connecting community members in need with an incredible and growing network of more than 100 volunteers. PCEC was able to activate our network of community volunteers to sandbag to protect our most vulnerable friends and neighbors and we have been coordinating neighbor to neighbor clean-up efforts since.

We have and will continue to dedicate countless hours of staff time to flood response, including: 

  • Signing up more than 120 local volunteers to assist with flood relief;

  • Helping several properties with flood cleanup, a very labor-intensive process including pumping water, removing ruined debris, furniture, cupboards, drywall, flooring, appliances, etc. from homes to allow the home to dry out and be reclaimed;

  • Loaned our communications director to help Park County coordinate disaster communications;

  • Creating tutorial videos to teach community members how to step-by-step cleanup process after a flood, how to navigate flood insurance, and health and safety considerations;

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  • Coordinating a EcoFlight to get a bird’s eye view of the flood area with local geomorphologist, wildlife experts, local business owners, housing experts and the media, where we discussed the impacts of the flood to our community and businesses and what it means to steward the wildness of this last free-flowing river in the United States;

  • Helping to initiate the use of the Crisis Cleanup platform, a map and database of people in need so that relief organizations/nonprofits can identify where to focus their clean up efforts;

  • Encouraging other local organizations to use Crisis Cleanup, so we can better coordinate response between organizations;

  • Taking a leading role in connecting people in need to willing volunteers. At first, we coordinated volunteers through emails, texts and zoom calls. Now, we have a slick volunteer management software system Civic Champs which will allow us to better track hours and better understand the impact of volunteerism;

  • And much much more.

Now three weeks after the flood, national volunteer organizations here to help shoulder the labor burden, but PCEC’s ability to immediately coordinate volunteers and respond to the flood demonstrates how critical a local, grassroots network is to helping a community respond in a climate emergency. The flood has exposed the vulnerabilities of many of our systems in the face of climate change.

This is not the first time, and it won’t be the last time that people in our community have had to unite to protect our home. PCEC couldn't be here for the community in this time of need without the support of people like you.

In community,

All of us at PCEC

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