By Jeff Brumley
Until recently, faith-based disaster-relief agencies continued to rely heavily on e-mail and telephone to coordinate their efforts and communicate their needs to donors and volunteers. But recent disasters in Oklahoma and Texas have seen those agencies rely more heavily on Facebook, Twitter and other outlets.
Churches located in impact zones also seem to be catching on.
“We are seeing better how social media can be used to communicate our needs and keep apprised of the situations,” said Tommy Deal, national disaster-response coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Deal said responders are on a learning curve about using new media effectively. “Some of us who are trying to give leadership are still in an e-mail mentality when we’re living in a social media world,” he said. “We need to take the plunge and get on over there.”
But the local and national response in Newcastle and Moore, Okla., where at least 24 died in a EF5 tornado that ripped through the town May 20, shows that shift is already underway. Within hours of the twister, congregations across the area and denominational spectrum were posting useful, real-time information for survivors.
Among them was NorthHaven Church in Norman, a CBF partner whose immediate use of social media after the tornado made it a haven for shell-shocked refugees.
By nightfall of the twister strike, NorthHaven had become a place where visitors could eat, charge their cell phones and get directions around the impact zone. Many victims knew to go there thanks to social media.
Volunteers from other denominations began arriving the next day to donate supplies – and deliver them to needed locations from the church. The day after that, semis were pulling in from across the state with relief supplies.
“Social media became one of the quickest ways for us to mobilize volunteers and send supplies to areas that were being neglected,” NorthHaven Pastor Mitch Randall said in a Facebook message.
Denominational organizations responded just as quickly, urging restless, out-of-state volunteers to hold tight until help was requested, and connecting state leaders with local pastors to ascertain actual needs.
Facebook pages serve as old-fashioned bulletin boards, complete with photos and announcements about what different agencies are doing. The North American Baptist Fellowship’s Facebook page is peppered with photographs from Moore, and articles about its ongoing response to the devastation there. American Baptist Churches USA offers prayer and updates on its relief efforts on the denomination Facebook page.
Texas Baptist Men spokesperson Stephanie Midkiff said social media has become the dominant tool for sharing that group’s efforts and needs. Its Facebook page has hosted an unending series of disaster-zone photographs and videos since at least the explosion in West on April 17.
CBF and CBF Oklahoma have tried something new by specifically tasking someone to be responsible for social media coverage of their recovery needs and efforts, Deal said.
That’s resulted in the recent creation of the Oklahoma CBF Disaster Response page on Facebook, which is already busy welcoming out-of-state volunteers and posting pictures of the devastation. Deal said that page plus CBF blogs and other sites are now actively communicating the need for volunteers to help with cleanup, emotional and spiritual support and money.
Disaster-response planners, meanwhile, must continue to think of new ways to communicate, Deal said.
“A lot of it has to do with seeing how we are in a social media context and adding younger adults who want to be engaged,” he said.