You know the saying about how everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it?

Well, here’s our chance to do something.

We can keep some of the worst of it away from vulnerable families.

We can mop its nasty residue out of our neighbors’ homes.

A flood has a way of dimming the memory of the previous inclement spate. Remember snowpocalypse? The week before Christmas?

Three dozen homeless families do.

For those of us with homes, the snow was an inconvenience. For families living in cars or tents, it was a life-threatening event.

Thanks to the Severe Weather Program, they slept inside.

Associated Ministries coordinates the program, which works when it gets below freezing in Pierce County.

Tacoma Rescue Mission and the Martin Luther King Center Shelter in Tacoma extend their hours for single homeless people. Open Hearth Ministries and Freezing Nights mobilize for homeless individuals in Puyallup.

Five agencies bring families without homes in from the cold and settle them into motels. Open Hearth, Helping Hand House, South Sound Outreach Services, Tacoma Rescue Mission Family Services and Lakewood Area Shelter Association register the families. They send them to clean, safe motels that charge $64 a night.

That’s less expensive than setting up shelters in churches, said Associated Ministries Executive Director David Alger. And the motels are cozier and more private.

Associated Ministries keeps the books and pays the bills.

It raises the money for the Severe Weather Fund from individual donors, foundations and governments. Pierce County and Tacoma each budgeted $10,000 for the fund. That might have lasted through a normal winter.

But there hasn’t been much normal about this winter.

“In December, we had 17 straight days in which we housed anywhere from seven to 33 families a day at $64 a pop,” Alger said. “We spent $25,000 during the cold spell. Lakewood Area Shelter had a fund of $7,500. They spent all their money, plus more.”

There is $3,000 left in the fund.

As soon as the flood crisis ends, Alger will be out stumping for money. If keeping a family warm and inside would make you feel warm inside, send a check to Associated Ministries Severe Weather Program, 1224 South I St., Tacoma, 98405.

Or perhaps mucking about in mud is more your style.

Again, Alger is your guy.

After Hurricane Katrina, Pierce County’s churches wanted to help. Associated Ministries coordinated the effort and trained care teams that settled 50 hurricane families.

The program worked well enough to win an award from the National Association of Counties, and to merit public support.

“The Pierce County Department of Emergency Management has continued to fund creating and maintaining the care teams,” Alger said.

Those teams will work with flood victims here over the next months.

Associated Ministries’ Disaster Response Program grew out of the care team effort and is thriving under the leadership of Gill Bahnsen.

He’s coordinating volunteers willing to help residents haul out damaged and destroyed furnishings and shovel mud out of living rooms.

“A lot of really dirty work comes with flooding,” Alger said.

There’s enough of that work to last for months.

“People get excited about disasters when they’re fresh,” Alger said. “But in four or five days, they will forget about it. Disasters last six, 12, 18 months.”

That’s not necessarily a failing on the part of people who are willing to help. It’s a consequence of news fading off the front page. People don’t realize the need is still out there, or know how to address it.

Bahnsen can help with that. If you’re all about rubber boots, e-mail him at gillb@associatedministries.org, or call 253-383-3056, ext. 129.

We can step up.

We can be virtual umbrellas. We can wield real brooms.

We can stop talking and do something about what the weather’s wrought around here.

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677

kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com