That's where one of several Glasgow-Barren County Emergency Management Emergency Support Functions (ESF) would come into play. ESFs are the various aspects of response that may be needed for a disaster including transportation, medical services and emergency management.
The mission for ESF 7 – resource support – is to “acquire personnel, equipment and other resources to support response and recovery efforts during a disaster. This may consist of emergency relief supplies, telecommunications, transportation, food and water, fuel and security,” said Anita May at the ESF quarterly meeting Thursday afternoon.
May works with the local Community Emergency Response Team, and she said Tracy Shirley, director of Glasgow-Barren County Emergency Management, had asked for CERT to prepare to have responsibility for volunteer and donations management, so she had been doing more research on what all the role would entail. She shared that information with the rest of the group of approximately 25 people who attended the meeting.
She said the CERT concept arose after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake that measured 7.2 on the Richter scale and killed 5,000 people.
“There were 800 spontaneous volunteers that showed up to that incident ...,” May said, “unfortunately, out of those 800, over 100 of those volunteers were killed trying to save others.”
The Los Angeles Fire Department realized the need for trained volunteers to be ready to assist professional emergency services workers during times when an incident would cause them to need extra help, and it created a Disaster Preparedness Division within the department with the primary purpose of creating a community emergency response team, she said.
The program was so successful that by 2011, CERTS were in all 50 states and three other countries, she said.
She named other examples, including the tornado in West Liberty, in which more coordination could have made a significant difference.
Ten members of the Barren County CERT here have completed a combination of approximately 43 hours of training to prepare for managing volunteers and donations. Each of them has a specific role assigned, May said.
In the event of a disaster, a volunteer reception center will be set up at a location different from the emergency operations center through which anyone wishing to volunteer would be routed. A separate location will be designated to receive donations, so they can be disseminated from a central location and it will be clearer what the needs are, she said.
Information will be distributed through news media to let potential volunteers know where to go and let others know where to take donated items and what items or services are actually needed, May said.
Volunteers will be screened as to their interest and skill sets, and a background check will be done, she said. An arrangement has been made to have a quick turnaround on those, she said. As one example, she said, the volunteer coordinator could get a call that 10 people with and who can operate chainsaws are needed to help remove one or more trees across a main roadway so emergency vehicles can get through. Through their volunteer database, they could know who to contact.
Information such as volunteer hours, which is needed for reports submitted to get federal financial reimbursement, would also be tracked through there, she said.
May said the team has a rolling list of potential locations to use for these reception centers, but those places could be directly impacted by the disaster or could become no longer available for another reason, so that's why they are not announced in advance. She did ask that anyone with a suggestion or an offer of a location that would be suitable for those purposes contact her through the emergency management office at 270-651-4910.
Ideally, the donation center would be a warehouse-type space with a loading dock, she said, but other options would be considered.
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