American Red Cross Month

WWII Poster

Caesar:
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer:
Beware the ides of March.

- Shakespeare's Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2.
Caesar is killed on March 15

The month of March may be halfway over at the Ides but it's not too late to mention that March is Red Cross Month. The American Red Cross (ARC) responds to disasters, helps members of the military, provides blood for those in need and teaches lifesaving skills.

• Every year the Red Cross responds to more than 70,000 disasters—including approximately 150 home fires every day.
• About 11 million Americans turn to the ARC to learn first aid, CPR, swimming, and other health and safety skills. Last year, more than 158,000 people volunteered to teach those courses.
• Half the nation's blood supply— six million pints annually—is collected by more than 155,000 Red Cross volunteers .
• Among the emergency services for the men and women of the armed forces is the delivery of urgent family messages—around the clock and around the globe.

Here's how you can help...

The Red Cross Depends on Volunteers
Volunteers constitute 96 percent of the total work force to carry on ARC's humanitarian work. You can search for volunteer opportunities at http://www.redcross.org/en/volunteertime
More than 30,900 volunteers serve as chairs, members of boards of directors, or on advisory boards for local Red Cross units - chapters, Blood Services regions, and military stations.

Donate to the Red Cross
A hot meal delivered to victims after a disaster, blood when it is needed most, shelter when there is nowhere else to turn, an emergency message delivered to a member of the Armed Forces from their family -- these are just some of the ways that gifts are put to work through the American Red Cross. Thanks to the generosity of donors, the American Red Cross is empowering people to perform extraordinary acts in the face of emergencies.
Find out how to donate online or by mail.

Give Blood
See http://www.redcrossblood.org/make-donation to find a blood drive near you.
See http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-requirements to see if your are eligible to donate blood.

Bottom Line

During Red Cross Month, the ARC asks that you support your community by making a donation, volunteering, taking a class, or giving blood.

Animal Response Teams

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

Over the past many years my wife and I have joined several volunteer disaster response organizations. Our first was WEVR, Westchester Emergency Volunteer Responders. This was a county version of CERT, Citizen Emergency Response Team. We received lots of excellent training and a backpack of supplies but the program was utilized just once that I’m aware of. CERT works much better on the city or neighbor scale. Our county has switched its focus to MRC, Medical Reserve Corps, made up of volunteer doctors and other medical professionals.

Our next organization was the Red Cross Disaster Action Team. We responded to late night calls for help for families with house fires who needed a place to stay and supplies. We learned this is difficult to do with a full time job and our now on weekend call only.

While at a Red Cross volunteer event, we met the organizers of the Westchester Country Animal Response Team (WesCART). After Hurricane Katrina, FEMA realized that many families refused to evacuate their house if it meant abandoning their pets – Red Cross Shelters do not allow pets! In 2006 the Federal Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (P.E.T.S) Act was passed which requires state and local emergency preparedness plans to include the needs of individuals with pets or service animals during all phases of emergencies. To address this law most states have organized State Animal Response Team (SART) programs. WesCart is a component of the NY statewide EmpireSART.

So far we’ve been given an ID badge, taken online training courses and represented the organization at a Cat show. I’ve just completed the online course for Emergency Animal Sheltering and am overwhelmed by the complexities of a shelter. Topics include:

• Paper work
• Animal check-in and tracking (whose dog is this?)
• Security (is that cat really yours?)
• Decontamination (clean up the animals, vet care, cage cleaning, dealing with animal diseases)
• Safe animal handling (don’t get bit!)
• Animal separation (don’t mix un-fixed girls and boys! Don’t place dogs next to cats, cats next to birds, etc)
• Morgue (sorry your pet died)
• Staffing and supplies
• More paper work
• Food Prep
• Animal walking and waste disposal
• Etc.

I think managing a Red Cross Shelter for people is easier! Hopefully the residents won’t bite, won’t become misplaced, and you won’t be blamed if any babies are made.

Bottom Line

Volunteer! You’ll meet new people and learn new skills. You’ll discover that planning for any emergency is a four-step cycle:

1. Preparation – organizing supplies, attending training classes
2. Response – putting your skills and equipment to work during an emergency
3. Recovery – the cleanup afterwards and adjusting to the psychological impact
4. Mitigation – making new plans, what could be done better next time?

Christmas Ghost Stories

"There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago" - lyrics from It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

My wife volunteers her time one day a month by telling stories to school children. She does this as a member of Spellbinders, an organization dedicated to oral storytelling.

In October she was worried about telling Halloween stories that might be too scary for third graders but they said, "nah, we can handle it", and they did. They loved the scary stories. During her November visit the children asked for scary Thanksgiving stories but she didn't know any. So she called me up afterwards and asked me to find out if there were any scary Christmas stories available. My wife is not the only one asking this question. Check out the post by a "Good Morning Carolina" TV co-anchor who ponders why "Scary ghost stories" are mentioned in the Christmas song It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year.

There is clearly a British tradition of Christmas ghosts. The English story, "A Christmas Carol", is filled with ghosts who scare Scrooge to a better life. There was a Dr Who episode that begins with Charles Dickens reciting "A Christmas Carol" and then seeing an actual ghost in the audience. The classic novel, A Turn of the Screw, begins at Christmastime and there is mention of telling ghost stories. In the 1970s the BBC aired ghost stories at Christmastime.

Karen Michelle Nutt explains that there is a connection between Christmas Ghost Stories and Celtic Spirits. December 21 is the longest night of the year and the second most haunted day (Halloween being #1). The Celtic Yuletide season originally represented the death and rebirth of the sun and became associated with death and spirits in general. In modern times the Catholic Church substituted Christmas Eve, Dec 24, for the Winter Solstice with Christ bring light to the world and ending darkness.

Bottom Line

Perhaps Tim Burton's, A Nightmare Before Christmas, is no so far off the mark? With stores celebrating Christmas now the day after Halloween, why not let some Halloween invade Christmastime?

Ready for Crisis website

“You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.” - William S. Burroughs

The Canadian Red Cross has created a new Ready for Crisis website for voluntary organizations that provide important social services.

“We found millions of vulnerable Canadians depend on voluntary sector services for their daily survival, but many of those organizations [40%] have no disaster plans in place to protect their service delivery in times of crisis." says Don Shropshire, National Director of Disaster Management at the Canadian Red Cross. "Our research indicated the voluntary sector is a large part of the solution but
it needs help."

Imagine a senior citizen who is dependent on “Meals on Wheels” for their daily bread. But without warning, for many days, no food will be delivered while the roads are closed due to a blizzard, flood, collapsed bridge, etc. It is wishful thinking to believe the Red Cross will come to their rescue without any notification.

- The Red Cross may not know this person is starving because others in the same neighborhood evacuated or are self-sustaining.

And even if notified, there may be nothing the Red Cross can do.

- Road closures impact the Red Cross also. The Red Cross Emergency Vehicles have strict rules AGAINST entering flooded or hazardous areas.

Hence the Red Cross is asking organizations like Meals on Wheels to draw up advance plans for emergency scenarios. Who will the org call for help? Who can fill the gap? Which clients are at the greatest risk?

Consider the impact of a prolonged power outage.

- Food in refrigerators must be tossed out. Can a food bank, soup kitchen, Meals on Wheels, continue to feed its clients with non-perishable foods?
- Will these meal orgs have a working kitchen without power? Anyone got a manual can opener to open those #10 size cans? Is there back up lighting so the workers can assemble meals?
- The computers are down so no google maps or calling up the client case files. Are there print copies of maps and addresses of where the food must be delivered?

Bottom Line

I hope organizations in all countries take advantage of the Ready for Crisis website to become better prepared. As was seen with Katrina, many community emergency plans forget to account for those who cannot save themselves. It’s easy for a mayor to broadcast TV and radio warnings to evacuate but what if you’re too poor to own a car or too weak and frail to drive one? Who will save these people after their caseworkers, the bus drivers, taxi drivers, and everyone else able-bodied has fled? When a hospital must evaucate, who will move the patients?

ARC Disaster Action Team

"Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a
triviality as if it were a disaster." - Quentin Crisp

While my wife and I have been Disaster Action Team members of the American Red Cross for many years, it was only yesterday that I saw a "job description" of the role. I thought this might be interesting to share...

DAT members assist the Red Cross in its mission to provide relief to victims of disaster and help prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. Disaster Action Team members respond to disaster scenes during assigned times, provide relief (shelter, money & toiletry kit) by completing all ARC forms at disaster sites and provide referrals to other agencies. DAT volunteers must be able to respond at all hours or as scheduled with own transportation, be aware and conversant with diversity issues, and able to maintain confidentiality with clients.

Team members will learn: “Mass Care Overview”, “Fundamentals of Disaster Assessment”, “Shelter Operations”, and “Client Casework Providing Emergency Assistance”.

DAT volunteers are valued members of Red Cross relief services who make an impact on clients' lives. You will have the opportunity to enhance your personal organizational and leadership skills and to be trained in Red Cross emergency response skills. We ask volunteers to commit a minimum of six months. Once trained you may remain active as long as required training is up-to-date.

Bottom Line

If this sounds like something you'd like to do contact your local Red Cross. In addition to the Disaster Action Team there is also a need for volunteers to process the paper work and type it into computers, to organize blood drives, staff ARC tables at events, and give presentations to the community.