Planning for the Unthinkable: People, Processes and Properties

In July 2014, four small, lightning-sparked fires joined together in central Washington state’s Methow Valley to form the largest fire in the state’s history. Smoke rose so high that it created its own weather. The fire burned 256,108 acres and destroyed 300 homes.

The accredited Methow Conservancy had no plan for this disaster, but leaders contacted staff and made sure they were safe. When the danger had passed, they reached out to landowners.

Then, just over a year later, more lightning-caused fires struck, burning over 300,000 acres, destroying 179 homes and killing three firefighters. The fire burned for over a month.

The Methow Conservancy knew it needed to create a disaster plan.

No organization can plan for every disaster, but a few principles can see an organization through most of them. “Communication is king and being flexible is queen,” says Methow’s associate director, Sarah Brooks.

Land trusts across the country that have weathered disasters reveal that it’s helpful to group your disaster plan into three priorities: people, processes and properties.

In October 2017, Dave Koehler, executive director of the accredited Sonoma Land Trust, north of San Francisco, woke up one morning to find that several blazes had ignited in the area overnight. “We had a disaster plan, but not one that said what to do if there are multiple catastrophic fires,” he says. Still, the plan proved helpful. “We had the staff ’s home and cellphone numbers. Our stewardship director had a list of conserved properties.”

A land trust’s most important task, before, during and after a disaster, is to communicate with the people who are the land trust.

“Our first priority was safety,” Koehler says. People living on the trust’s fee-owned properties were evacuated and animals were cared for. Staff members were accounted for and known to be safe before other actions were taken.

The accredited Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast, located on Florida’s west coast, knows its biggest threat is hurricanes, so it prepared for them long before Hurricane Irma’s devastating winds and damaging storm surge washed ashore in September 2017.

Because a hurricane can wipe out power and communications over a wide area, the foundation’s disaster communications plan includes a local emergency phone number and an out-of-area contact for each staff member, says board member Michael Knupp.

With both electricity out and cellphone towers damaged by fire, the Methow Conservancy came up with a creative way to continue internal communications: The staff communicated through notes on the office door. With communications established, says Brooks, the rest is responding to what this particular disaster is throwing at you.

While no preparations could have prevented the catastrophic flash flooding that ripped through Colorado’s Front Range in September 2013, in one important way, the accredited Estes Valley Land Trust was ready.

“Because we had just been through the accreditation process, we were better prepared to react,” says Estes Valley board member Curt Gleaves. Land Trust Standards and Practices and the accreditation process’s guidance document give specific practices that help protect land trusts during a disaster. More important, the accreditation process created a problem-solving culture focused on the longterm conservation values of the land trust’s easements.

The hurricane preparations in the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast’s disaster plan have the staff putting the organization’s computers and servers in the headquarters elevator — the shaft is made of cinder blocks — and locking it on the second floor, above floodwaters.

The Estes Valley Land Trust found that the electronic backups of vital documents were especially helpful after the floods, as committees met and documents were sent electronically. “We were able to do a lot without being physically in the room with our files or needing to schedule a meeting,” says Gleaves.

“You are never going to know all the impacts of a disaster,” he says. “Rather than trying to prepare for a specific disaster event, it’s about having the right attitude. Take an approach of knowing how you are going to respond, rather than focusing on what you are going to respond to.”

Insurance will loom large in your land trust’s ability to survive a disaster, says Knupp, and that starts with having policies in place ahead of time and reviewing them annually. Documentation — even in the middle of a crisis — will make claims possible later.

Finally, don’t fall into the trap of believing that once a disaster is declared, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is going to pay for everything. “Getting a FEMA designation isn’t easy, and we didn’t get a full one here,” says Brooks. “Federal grants come with as many headaches as the dollars that they offer,” warns Gleaves. Some emergency funding merely reimburses expenses months after the money has been spent. If you don’t have the money to lay out in the first place, it’s not much help.

Therefore, financial stability and cash reserves are key disaster recovery tools.

Many land trusts might think to start disaster recovery by visiting conserved properties, assessing the damage and creating a recovery plan, but it’s important to remember that safety comes first. If you are trying to visit a property before the fire is out, before the floodwaters recede or before the authorities approve entry, it’s too soon.

Some of your most important property work may be done in the office, as landowner requests pour in.

With policies and procedures in place, thanks to accreditation, Estes Valley Land Trust’s stewardship and legal committees knew how to handle questions from landowners about conflicts between their easements and the needs of disaster recovery. “We quickly came up with a proactive approach,” says Gleaves. “We contacted landowners and said if you need to do something on your property for safety or utility access, go ahead and do it, even if it goes against your easement.”

The role you as a board member play in creating and executing a disaster plan depends on the size of your land trust. At a small land trust, board members may do everything. At a large land trust, board members may review and approve of a disaster plan created by the staff. Knupp, who had a career in risk management, urges board members to lend their expertise to the staff if they have experience relevant to disaster planning.

When the crisis phase of a natural disaster is over, people will look around and see a transformed landscape. There may be burned timbers where trees once stood, or river stones paving what was recently a meadow. Your community may turn to your land trust for help, advice or even just comfort.

“We learned that, as much as people needed to process the loss of their worldly possessions, they also needed to process that this place that they loved now looked different,” says Brooks. “Our board was open to us being ‘land social workers,’ being listeners for that grieving.”

After the two fires the Methow Conservancy found that it had resources unique to its area. The board approved an expansion of the organization’s mission to include visiting the property of anyone who requested it and advising landowners on what they could do to help their land heal (which in some cases was simply to wait).

In Sonoma, another organization handled general postfire erosion and sediment control, while Sonoma Land Trust helped the community as it always had — by seeing deals through and working on the lands it had conserved, says Neal Fishman, board chair.

The Estes Valley Land Trust took a middle route. “We served as a fiscal sponsor for three startup nonprofits that were doing disaster recovery,” says Gleaves. Because it had planned ahead, the land trust could become the administrative back office for these startups, allowing them to receive grants and do millions of dollars’ worth of conservation work in the community.

It’s important for land trusts to share their lessons with each other. The Methow Conservancy has reached out to several land trusts since its fires, including the Sonoma Land Trust. In turn, this winter the Sonoma Land Trust reached out to land trusts in southern California dealing with fires and landslides.

The word from these land trusts is that it will take longer than you think for life to return to normal. In some cases landscapes and communities are changed forever. However, the seeds of normalcy can be planted almost immediately. “After that first fire, while people were still grieving for the landscape, one of our board members said, ‘We need to let people do something to help,’” says Brooks. The trust organized a “seed mob” to help restore a damaged area.

“We thought we’d get 10 or 20 people to come out on a dreary November day,” says Brooks, “but over 100 people came, which is amazing for our tiny community. While we were seeding, we were able to show people how things were coming back, that the land knew what to do, and that it was still a wonderful and miraculous place. I’m proud that we did that.”