Nashville VOAD

About Nashville VOAD

The Nashville and Davidson County communities have changed dramatically since the Nashville VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) was last active in a meaningful way. Lessons learned from the Great Flood of 2010 and the tornadoes that struck our community a decade later haven’t been domiciled in a way that benefits the community and its ability to respond.

Creating a purposeful and reactive mechanism that scales-up during intractable crisis is vital to a healthy and efficient response. The purpose of the creating a VOAD is to strengthen area-wide disaster coordination and preparedness by sharing programs, policies, information, and engaging in joint planning, education, and training.

To accomplish this goal, a variety of organizations, both private and public, are invited to play a role in how and when a community responds to disaster.

A strong, responsive VOAD requires the participation and support of a variety of organizations across the community.

While we are most active in response and recovery, we participate in all four phases of disaster management.

• Preparedness : planning, training, and educational activities performed to increase our capability to respond to a disaster;
• Mitigation: actions taken to prevent or reduce the cause, impact, and consequences of disasters;
• Response: activities that address the short-term, direct effects of an incident and include immediate actions to save lives, protect property, and meet basic human needs;
• Recovery: long-term activities that work towards restoring the community to pre-disaster norms or better.

The Nashville VOAD is a member of the Tennessee Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster.