A History of Domestic Emergency Response

Mercy Corps employee works to unload relief supplies for Hurricane survivors in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Photo: Mercy Corps.

Mercy Corps is best known for its swift and effective response to international disasters. But sometimes, the magnitude of disasters right here in the U.S. compels us to act.

Hurricane Andrew

Several days after Hurricane Andrew swept across south Florida in August 1992, causing more than $25 billion in damage and claiming 23 lives, Mercy Corps’ Richard Bray traveled to the disaster’s epicenter. Today he can still recall the sweltering heat and mounds of 10-foot-high debris piled along roadsides in South Dade County.

“There were areas that were totally flattened,” recalls Bray, now director of planned giving at Catholic Community Services of Western Washington. “There was going to be a need to sustain folks for a while.”

Surveying the devastation with a rental car and a then-rare cell phone, Bray noticed an opportunity to bolster efforts of local churches that were offering food and shelter to survivors. His approach reflected the agency’s entrepreneurial nature and its desire to partner with those working most closely with survivors in need. “We weren’t the end-all, be-all for relief,” says Bray, “but we helped churches - who were right there at ground level - respond in a caring, compassionate and efficient manner.”

Oklahoma City Bombing

The Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 left 168 dead in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil at that time. Mercy Corps Founder Dan O’Neill remembers conferring with CEO Neal Keny-Guyer that morning.

“We basically asked ourselves, if this bombing had happened against civilians in some other country we were working in, wouldn’t we do something? And the answer was yes,” says O’Neill.

Another important factor was the encouragement from donors, O’Neill recalls. “Our donors are in many ways our conscience, and if they demand a response, we usually heed their call.”

O’Neill and others decided the agency would support the efforts of the Salvation Army, whose Oklahoma headquarters sits only blocks from the bombed-out Murrah Federal Building and whose officers were among the first to aid survivors after the blast. Later, the Salvation Army provided post-traumatic stress counseling to survivors, rescue workers and family members.

September 11, 2001

The magnitude of the 9/11 tragedy warranted speedy action. Two top-level Mercy Corps staff members were dispatched to New York City on September 15. Upon arriving, they found that plenty of resources were available to help those who’d lost a family member in the attack, but little was being done for those less directly affected: families who’d been displaced from their homes, lost a job or whose children were forced to switch schools as a result of the devastation across lower Manhattan.

By the end of September, Mercy Corps and three partners - JPMorgan Chase, Bright Horizons Family Solutions and the National Center for Grieving Families - had assembled an innovative program to help parents and childcare providers help children cope with fear, grief and trauma, and at the same time learn respect for others.

Mercy Corps began training up to 500 mental-health providers, childcare workers, special victims bureau detectives and other professionals each month.

“We sought out the people who work with kids who are traumatized, and we helped them to understand the impact of trauma on kids of different ages and stages in development,” explains Griffin Jack, who managed the project for Mercy Corps.

Mercy Corps also partnered with the Church of Latter-Day Saints to distribute 12,500 “Comfort Kits,” which consisted of a stuffed animal and briefcase-sized boxes containing writing utensils, a pad of paper, a flashlight, stickers and a Putumayo World Music CD of ten children’s songs from around the globe.

As part of the project, Mercy Corps helped develop two trauma resource books and worked with renowned storyteller Laura Simms to produce a workbook that uses storytelling to convey principles of tolerance.

In the end, what was intended to be a three-to-six-month project endured for nearly three years and reached more than 135,000 affected children. Simms plans to use the workbook to comfort young survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

As that storm approached the U.S. Gulf coast last month, Mercy Corps kept a watchful eye open. As soon as the depth of the destruction became apparent, the agency sent out urgent appeals for aid.

“It’s developed like a picture in a darkroom,” says O’Neill. “It’s coming up slow, but it’s coming up lurid. And it’s our job to use whatever capabilities we have to support those caught in the grip of such disasters.”