By Luisa Loi
La Conner Community News
A growing group of Skagitonians is gearing up to build more resilient communities and support their neighbors when disaster strikes, and community members are welcome to join and bring their own skills and expertise to the table.
The historic floods of December 2025, which impacted 784 homes countywide, highlighted the need for better communication and resource-sharing, as well as solutions aimed at long-term resilience in Skagit — a county vulnerable to floods, earthquakes, wildfires and volcanic activity.
To fill these gaps, the Skagit Long-Term Recovery Group has spent months bringing together government agencies, nonprofits, businesses, faith communities and individuals, tasked with maximizing available resources, coordinating volunteers and improving response during and after an emergency without duplicating services. A similar effort, the Whatcom Long Term Recovery group, already exists up north.
A team of people from all walks of life
The effort is being led by Chuck Messinger, community resilience director and housing strategist at the United Way of Skagit County. While the United Way is the Recovery Group’s fiscal sponsor and administrative partner, the group is self-governed and made up of 51 members spread across six committees that meet once a month. These volunteers include 40 community members and 11 representatives of disaster relief agencies, with FEMA among those, Messinger said in an interview on Aug. 21.
“When the next disaster occurs, we’ll have an entire team of people from all walks of life, every corner of the county that are ready to respond,” he said.
Each member is assigned to a committee based on their interests, skills and expertise. The committees include:
- The Steering Committee, which establishes priorities, fosters collaboration between the committees, monitors recovery progress and ensures the group’s focus remains on the needs of disaster survivors;
- The Unmet Needs Committee is in charge of identifying any unaddressed needs and coordinates financial and in-kind resources to help families and individuals;
- On top of promoting the group to the wider public, the Communications and Outreach Committee is tasked with sharing timely and accurate information with disaster survivors, partner organizations, donors, volunteers and the community;
- The construction committee coordinates repair, rebuilding and mitigation projects for properties that were damaged by a disaster, in accordance with building codes;
- The Connections/Resources Committee identifies, develops and coordinates resources needed to support long-term disaster recovery, working with donors, government agencies, foundations, businesses and community partners to secure funding to cover recovery needs and strengthen community resilience.
Building a stronger Skagit
Whether a disaster is federally declared or not, the group’s mission is to ensure that no disaster survivors are left behind.
This can be done by addressing needs that insurance, government assistance and other emergency response resources could not meet — an issue that has resulted in growing disillusionment among regularly-flooded communities, where the frequency of disasters outpaces their ability to make a full recovery.
“There’s a degree of distrust when it comes to state and federal organizations, because when they experienced disasters in the past, they haven’t always received assistance,” Messinger said.
According to the Governor’s Office, the historic floods left 106 homes with “major or destroyed levels of damage.”
Messinger sees these impacts on his regular clean-up drives to East Skagit, where entire neighborhoods “just look like trailer graveyards,” he said. One community, Cape Horn, was particularly devastated to the point of looking like the set of a tornado movie, he said.
Even when combining flood insurance and state and federal assistance, however, a fixed-income household would still be unable to get back to where they were before the flood “90% of the time,” he said.
Another focus is getting consistent information out to the public, both during and after an emergency.
“When people are in crisis, they shouldn’t have to dig for answers. They should have reliable services, points of contact, know that certain organizations are available to answer the call,” Messinger said.
While it will take more time and resources to become disaster-ready, the Skagit Long-Term Recovery Group is “getting closer” to that goal, Messinger said.
“It is going to take us years to rebuild from just this one flood, and we should anticipate another one very soon,” he said. “If we get to the point where we have a nice stack of funds that are set aside and ready for the next disaster, we can immediately respond.”
According to Messinger, the Skagit County Department of Emergency Management requested United Way take over from Salvation Army to provide ongoing disaster case management services for the county.
Starting Oct. 1, all clients receiving or pending state-level support were transferred to the United Way of Skagit County. The state approved a $1.5 million grant to provide case management and construction coordination assistance until April 2028, he wrote in a text.
“United Way will be working diligently to combine county, state, and Federal assistance data to ensure all households left with any unmet needs are contacted, and efforts will be made to seek out any households impacted that did not apply for assistance,” he wrote in a text on Sept. 30. “With these data resources combined the team hopes to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of the December floods, and develop sustainable solutions for future Disaster Response.”
Becoming a part of the change
Messinger said there is room for more members, and that anyone who is interested in joining is welcome to chat over coffee.
In an email to La Conner Community News, La Conner Town Administrator Scott Thomas said he will consider becoming a member, if the Emergency Management Commission makes a recommendation to the Town Council. He pointed out that long-term recovery groups “have been very helpful in communities that have established them,” citing Whatcom, Spokane and Okanogan counties, as well as Maui and Malibu.
Brianna Wilson, who chairs the Emergency Management Commission, said she might not be able to join due to a busy schedule, but praised the effort.
“I think the mission of the group is great. I only know a little about it but it brings community together in a time of need.”
To make a donation to the Skagit Long-Term Recovery Group Fund, visit unitedwayskagit.org/recovery. Donations are used exclusively to assist households with any unmet needs — such as home repairs and rebuilding, accessibility modifications, replacing furnishings and appliances — after other resources are exhausted.
Luisa Loi is a general assignment reporter for la Conner Community News.
