Lessons Learned in Times of Disaster

Being good at disaster response and recovery wasn’t ever something Redwood Credit Union set out to do. It wasn’t a goal or focus for us. But when a series of unfortunate events affected our region over the past several years, we simply followed our mission – to passionately serve the best interests of our members, employees and communities – and in doing so, we learned how to be there when our community needed us most.

In 2015 and 2016, major fires struck California’s Lake County, which is in our field of membership. We didn’t have branch locations there at the time, but we do have many members living in the area, so we offered special loan programs, payment relief, increased credit limits and other account support to help.

We then partnered with State Senator Mike McGuire and our local paper, The Press Democrat, to create a dedicated fire relief fund through the RCU Community Fund, which is our nonprofit 501(c)(3). Over the course of those two fires, we were able to provide significant financial support to fire survivors in Lake County.

In October 2017, multiple fires broke out in four of the eight counties we serve, so thousands of our members were affected. Many of our staff, board and supervisory committee members were evacuated, and unfortunately, several lost homes and property. Our main offices in Santa Rosa, Calif., and several of our branches were in evacuation and fire-impacted zones. We did a lot to support our staff and officials immediately, including the following:

• We provided temporary lodging for employees and officials who were displaced.
• We provided temporary child care for employees (many local schools were closed) and some of our board members even volunteered to help with the kids.
• We brought in lunches for employees because many of the restaurants closest to our headquarters either were closed because they had no power, or were lost in the fires.
• We provided free onsite counseling and expanded counseling services through our Employee Assistance Program.
• Our staff voluntarily pooled their surplus PTO to offer it to coworkers who lost homes and needed additional time off.

In addition, we have been continuing to help support our employees who lost homes in a variety of ways.

Despite the situation, our systems and service were not impacted, thanks to a strong disaster plan we had in place, which allowed us to provide uninterrupted service when our members and community needed us most. We also offered special loans and financial assistance programs to assist impacted members.

We immediately partnered with Sen. McGuire and The Press Democrat to create the North Bay Fire Relief Fund. The fund was able to accept donations within 48 hours of the start of the fires, and word spread quickly. Over the 16 weeks following the fires, the fund raised and distributed more than $32 million to support fire survivors and relief efforts.

The response from people wanting to help was inspiring and overwhelming. Over 41,000 generous donors from all 50 states and 23 different countries contributed more than $32 million in donations. Seventy percent of the donations came from outside of the four impacted counties. RCU paid for all administrative costs, so 100% of donations went directly to help fire victims and relief efforts.

Fires have continued to devastate areas of northern and southern California over the past couple of years. While the most recent fires didn’t happen in our field of membership, we have provided support and guidance to other credit unions in affected areas to help them serve their members in a time of crisis.

Since the 2017 fires, we have worked closely with our members who were impacted to help them with their financial challenges. We’re also helping our members and community rebuild by offering construction loans, which have never previously been part of our lending program.

While I’d like to hope this is not the new normal, we’ve experienced large-magnitude fires in the communities we serve for the past four years. So it’s important to be prepared and ready to respond.

Not every credit union will be able to do what we did during the 2017 fires, as far as providing disaster relief – and in fact, I don’t recommend it. We had strong community partners, and our staff went above and beyond to support the efforts, but it was complicated and challenging every step of the way. You can always partner with reputable, local nonprofits to help with relief efforts. However, it’s essential to ensure your members have access to their money and the services they need from you in times of crisis.

Every credit union is different, but I can offer a few universal recommendations for how to prepare for natural disasters:

1. Create a plan for business continuity. Members need urgent access to their money during and after a disaster, and they’re depending on you to provide that. Work with your leadership team to develop a response plan and a continuity plan, and practice to make sure everyone knows their role.

2. Have a strong communications plan in place. Being able to reach your leaders, your staff and your service providers is essential. The 2017 fires in our area broke out in the middle of the night, and nearly half of our staff was evacuated from their homes. Because we had a strong communications plan, we were able to quickly ensure staff was safe, and secure lodging for those who needed it. We have also enhanced our communications system since then by implementing a company-wide text alert system that will allow us to send real-time alerts and updates to staff in the event of an emergency. We were also able to deploy teams to unaffected branches and our disaster recovery site in order to keep our systems active and provide uninterrupted service to our members.

3. Keep members informed. Use your website, email and social media to provide service updates so members know what to expect and how they can access their money. Monitor social media for comments and questions and be prepared to respond with accurate information.

Credit unions are founded on the principle of “people helping people,” and being there for our members, employees and communities during a disaster or crisis is the truest way to demonstrate our commitment to this philosophy.

Brett Martinez is President/CEO for Redwood CU. He can be reached at 707-576-5224 or pr@redwoodcu.org.