Written By: Christine Garcia 

Dr. Williams is the founder and CEO of the non-profit Regional Ready Rockaway in Queens, New York. He first began his work over 25 years ago in Rockaway, Queens as a way to develop a sense of emergency preparedness within the community, especially after experiencing natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the time of the disaster, Dr. Williams was working for the United States Congressman Gregory Meeks. Meeks worked as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Within the Caucus they had agreed to transfer some evacuees that had suffered tremendously as a result of the hurricane, to their congressional districts as a way to provide them with the resources and services that they needed in order to help them recover. In total, they were able to transfer 250 families from the 9th ward out of New Orleans. 

Dr. Williams ultimately envisions the 9th ward to be synonymous with the Rockaway Peninsula in Southeastern Queens “in terms of the geography, in terms of its characteristics, and in terms of the population.” While analyzing these similarities, Dr. Williams also began to realize that Southeastern Queens could soon begin to experience the same natural disasters as New Orleans given that it is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. This is when he began to feel as though to prepare the community for such things. This is when he began Regional Ready Rockaway which consisted of a group of emergency preparedness experts. 

After starting this non-profit, Dr. Williams worked to not only inform the community, but to also “bring in the agency’s first responding organizations who would be responsible for ensuring the health and safety of the community.” In 2011 once Hurricane Irene struck, Regional Ready Rockaway was able to monitor weather related activities through their partnership with NOAA, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This allowed them to be as well equipped as possible to face the natural disaster.