Hurricane Katrina.
When Hurricane Ernesto was threatening Florida and the entire East Coast close to a month ago, volunteers based in Santa Monica responded.
Following major events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and floods happen, the American Red Cross puts out a call for disaster volunteers around the country to supplement the services offered by the local chapters who can be quickly overwhelmed in a cataclysmic event.
The requests for support come from national headquarters through regional Red Cross Service Areas. And, when the requests for Ernesto disaster relief help from the Pacific Service Area hit Red Cross intra-chapter communications, Santa Monica heeded the call, sending a team that consisted of both disaster relief veterans and volunteers who emerged in the wake of Traditionally, requests go out for volunteers qualified for Disaster Services Human Resources (DSHR) to respond to a major event. The calls are typically for individuals with specific specialties, such as persons with experience in family services or feeding. Local volunteers tell their chapter they are able to deploy for as long as three weeks. Volunteers are then matched with needs at the disaster site, instructed to report for duty and flown into the disaster area by the Red Cross.
Recently, the American Red Cross has been urging local chapters to put together DSHR “teams” that specialize in specific service areas such as sheltering, mental health, logistics and family services. With Hurricane Ernesto bearing down on Florida, the Santa Monica “team” put together by Red Godfrey, the chapter’s disaster response chair, was “ready to go.”
Godfrey’s team consisted of Karen Young, 52, from Thousand Oaks; Terry Bourdages, 53, from Westwood; Joe Blumenfeld, 56, from Woodland Hills; Janet Burnley, 51, from Santa Monica and Kristen Ulrich, 36, also from Santa Monica.
Godfrey and Young had gone out on Hurricane Katrina disaster relief the previous year and were the only members of the team who had previous on-site disaster experience. The others came to the Santa Monica chapter during Katrina relief efforts to volunteer.
“They called us and we told them to come in, take classes and get the training to be able to go out into the Katrina disaster area,” Godfrey related. “And, they did.”
Young drives from Thousand Oaks to Santa Monica twice a week to volunteer, while Godfrey, who is also on the chapter’s Board of Directors, drives in four days a week from Calabasas. The chapter doesn’t compensate volunteers for mileage or other expenses.
“The American Red Cross was eager to try the team-versus-individual concept,”said Godfrey. “The thinking was that a ‘team’ that’s already organized and whose members know each other might be able to hit the ground running at a disaster faster than assembling a group of diverse strangers from around the country into a team on scene.”
Godfrey’s team was originally scheduled to fly into Tampa, FL, immediately after Ernesto blew through, but were rerouted the day of their flight to Charleston, South Carolina, because Ernesto was rapidly moving up the East Coast.
In Charleston, the Santa Monica team of shelter associates was put in charge. Santa Monica was the only chapter that had deployed a trained group of people already assembled as a working team.
“Most of the other volunteers did not understand what the ‘team concept’ was,” Godfrey said, “mainly because they had never seen it before.”
The Red Cross’ Raleigh Service Area headquarters had determined there was a need for supervision of shelter operations and mass care, including food distribution. The Santa Monica team began by coordinat-ing overall mass care in the Charleston area. Because evacuation shelters were set up in local schools, the school districts themselves provided most of the hot meals to shelter clients, thus making the Santa Monica team’s job a little easier.
In Charleston, which was hit by heavy flooding, shelters opened and closed within four days because shelter occupants were able to get back home, quickly. While the Charleston chapter did manage to open some shelters before the Santa Monica unit arrived, Godfrey’s team still handed out cots, blankets and meals, took care of administrative work such as head counts, budgeting and the coordination and delivery of various supplies for the four-day period.
As the Charleston operation wound down, the Santa Monica volunteers were preparing to fly back to California when the Southeast Service Area received a call from the job director at Charleston. He said, “If anyone needs help. this is the last chance to utilize this Santa Monica team and reassign them before they go back home.”
The Santa Monica team was reassigned to Wilmington, NC, on Cape Fear Island as a reward for their outstanding work in Charleston.
“We got high marks because we did our job and because we were a team, we knew each other, knew what to do and were efficiently organized,” remarked Godfrey. “Also, we were relaxed and easy to work with.”
Upon arrival on Cape Fear, Godfrey was assigned as the administrator for mass care. The team became the only mass care shelter team, opening and closing two shelters and taking charge of the bulk distribution of cleaning supplies and food. They also took out Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) and distributed food, water and emergency supplies where roads weren’t flooded. In many instances, clients picked up Red Cross supplies by canoe from distribution points set up on high ground.
Following a grueling eight days, Santa Monica volunteers were finally back in California, except for Godfrey, who stayed a total of two weeks to continue administrating the mass care operations and wrapping up final reports, financial records and the volumes of paperwork that had to be completed for the Red Cross Service Area disaster headquarters. Godfrey also wrote the narratives for chapters in Charleston and Wilmington that describe what the local Red Cross chapters did, things that worked and didn’t work, and suggestions for improving local operational efficiency.
Godfrey and the entire Santa Monica chapter are proud of her team of disaster volunteers, noting that Santa Monica now has six more seasoned, veteran disaster volunteers who can provide professional level support right here in the event the city sustains another earthquake or disaster.
EDITOR’S NOTE Bill Bauer is Director of Communications and a volunteer for the Santa Monica Red Cross, as well as a regular columnist for the Daily Press.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 29, 2006. Read the original PDF.