Join Planning Ahead for the Extreme Weather Survivors AMA on Sept 22
SEPTEMBER 2026
Extreme Weather Survivors AMA • Sept 22
Zero Responders: Survivors on Community, Mutual Aid & Recovery
When extreme weather hits, the first response often starts right next door. Join guest expert Keshi Satterwhite and fellow survivor experts for an open, interactive dialogue on grassroots preparedness, mutual aid organizing, and practical long-term recovery.
It's an all-day AMA (Ask me Anything) taking place inside the Extreme Weather Survivors Online Community. Join us on September 22nd for a day of real answers for on Zero Responders
If you've been through it, you already know. FEMA doesn't always come. More than a quarter of state requests for a federal disaster declaration are being denied right now, and the ones that get a decision wait an average of 66 days. Approval still doesn't mean help for individuals. Look at the Aspen Acres Fire. Over 300 homes gone, public assistance approved last week, and families are still waiting on a decision about individual assistance.
Outside nonprofits arrive with good intentions and a plan built somewhere else. Sometimes it fits. Often, it doesn't, because they don't know your street, your neighbors, or what your community was already missing before the disaster.
Here's who shows up. Your community. You and your neighbors are the zero responders, there long before anyone officially arrives, and still there years later when the support and the media attention are long gone.
This AMA is all survivor experts. People who lived it, then organized and kept showing up. Some built mutual aid networks. Some kept a group text alive when nobody else did. All of it counts. Find out what worked in another community. Learn how a mutual aid group actually gets off the ground. Ask how to bring support back to your own neighborhood. The people answering have been where you are, and the people asking might have exactly what someone else needs.
Bring your questions. A few to start:
How do I find my people when I don't know where to start?
What do you do when the outside help leaves but recovery isn't done?
How do you keep showing up for others without burning out?
Post anytime that day. Experts will drop in throughout, so there's no set hour you need to be online. Ask big, ask small, ask the thing you've been sitting on.
PLANNING AHEAD COMMUNITY CAFE
What's Already in Your Community?
NEIGHBOR TO NEIGHBOR
Community Corner
Standing With Merrick-Moore
A community garden can hold much more than what is planted in the ground.
Recently, the Samuel Green Sr. Community Garden in Merrick-Moore was robbed, and tools used to care for this important community space were stolen. The loss affects more than the garden itself. This space provides fresh produce for families, creates opportunities for young people to learn, gives neighbors a place to gather, and supports Merrick-Moore Community Development Corporation's environmental justice work.
Planning Ahead has had the opportunity to work alongside Merrick-Moore residents and MMCDC, and we have seen the care, knowledge, and commitment that community members bring to strengthening their neighborhood.
This is also a reminder of something we talk about in our own preparedness work: community spaces are community assets. Protecting and restoring them matters because they support the relationships and resources that help communities thrive every day and stay connected when challenges arise.
MMCDC has shared that they are committed to rebuilding, replanting, and continuing to invest in the Samuel Green Sr. Community Garden.
We invite our Planning Ahead community to stand with Merrick-Moore and support the garden's recovery.
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