Notes on the Science of Extreme Situations, Paper No. 12
AFTER ACTION REVIEW COMMENTS ON SHELTERING AND MASS FEEDING BY VOLUNTARY AGENCIES IN THE AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE ISABEL IN VIRGINIA
by Walter G. Green III
Copyright 2003 by Walter G. Green III. All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce copies for instructional use and individual copies for personal use as needed is granted to University faculty, researchers, and students.
HURRICANE ISABEL:
(1) Hurricane Isabel made landfall in North Carolina at near Category II strength and tracked across Virginia on 18 September 2003. Virginia experienced tropical storm force winds for a period of 29 hours, and significant storm surges in the Chesapeake Bay and tidal rivers. Much of central and eastern Virginia suffered prolonged power and water outages and extensive damage from tree falls. Agricultural losses alone were estimated to be in excess of $93,000,000. As of 23 October 2003, 79,723 teleregistrations from individuals and families requesting assistance had been received, with 1,062 homes destroyed and 8,886 damaged and 77 businesses destroyed and over 1,400 damaged (Commonwealth of Virginia 2003; United States 2003; American Disaster Reserve 2003).
METHOD:
(2) This paper reports a synopsis of after action comments made by representatives of the member agencies of the Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster during a review of hurricane response conducted as part of the organization's Fall Gathering at the Missionary Learning Center in Rockville, Virginia, on 23 October 2003. Some 21 agency lead individuals for disaster response participated in the review, chaired by Jonathan Barton of the Virginia Council of Churches and Frank Jennings of the United Methodist Church. Due to time limitations, I was unable to attend the entire review, but I was present for the discussion of the critical efforts in sheltering and mass feeding. This paper reports my field notes of the review.
SHELTERING:
(3) The reality is that Hurricane Isabel was not a great storm by Hurricane standards when it reached Virginia. Because residents perceived this to be a weak storm and believed that they could ride the storm out, many attempted to do so, and found that they could not reach shelters when they realized they needed them. This experience suggested to southeastern Virginia sheltering agencies that, in the next event, they would face not 7,000 shelterees, but rather possibly as many as 25,000.
(4) There was general agreement that public education messages need to stress that Hurricane Isabel was not a Category V storm and represents the low end of the damage spectrum, not the upper end. Experience in Isabel also reinforces the need to stress that preparedness for survival for 24-48-72 hours remains an individual responsibility and that localities, not state or federal resources, will be the responders during that period. A particular example of this was the general failure to adequately prepare patients on home oxygen systems adequately, the rapid exhaustion of all available oxygen supplies, and the failure of home health providers to have realistic plans to support their clients.
(5) A variety of specific problems were noted in shelter operations. Only a few jurisdictions had cots in storage for use in shelters, and in general shelters will not have cots available. Where there are cots, priority went to the shelter staff who would have to remain for as long as the shelter was open and to those who would experience difficulty actually getting up from the floor. Power was also a significant issue for shelters, as utilities started to shut down electric power to parts of their service area before storm arrival to protect the power grid. Future planning for shelters should include acquisition of generators in advance. The lack of special needs shelters - there were no special needs shelters opened in Hampton Roads - creates a problem in dealing with special needs patients as part of a general shelter population. In Virginia Beach alone, 1700 special needs cases were reported. Finally, assistance to shelters was not necessarily being well coordinated at the local level; in some cases shelter managers were calling directly to the Virginia Emergency Operations Center to request assistance.
(6) Shelter reporting created significant confusion, as information flowed through multiple channels. For example, American Red Cross reports of numbers of shelters open and shelter occupancy flowed to the Red Cross representative in the Virginia Emergency Operations Center. At the same time, local jurisdiction emergency operations centers were also reporting the same shelter data as representing their jurisdiction efforts. In one case, although reports indicated that four shelters were open in one jurisdiction, no source could identify where those shelters were located. In other cases, a number of unofficial shelters were opened as individual churches opened their facilities to congregation members and others in need, and a mosque in northern Virginia reportedly opened only for Muslim shelterees. Staff from the Federal Emergency Management Agency engaged in shopping behavior with multiple individuals querying the Red Cross and Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster representatives in the Emergency Operations Center repetitively - one individual reported three in-person inquiries in five minutes by different individuals.
(7) There was general agreement that inland host sheltering did not optimally meet needs, and that the capability for sheltering large numbers of evacuees needs to be improved. In this event, the inland sheltering problem was complicated by widespread severe storm impacts in the region that would normally have been the inland host region.
(8) The conflicting requirements of privacy, documentation, and disaster inquiry remains an issue. Protection of shelteree privacy through restriction of data on where individuals are sheltered, or even if they are sheltered, creates difficulty in providing services to them. Inclusion of waivers to allow release of the information may address some of the concerns, while protecting those who need protection - the classic example is the battered spouse, although special needs patients with medical requirements also invoke the protections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (United States 1996). However, the existence of unofficial shelters which did not register their shelterees made it difficult to locate disaster victims who were not in the system.
(9) Needs for sheltering change in the post-impact period. Initially schools offer excellent shelter capacity for impact period sheltering; however, school systems and local jurisdictions desire to reopen schools as rapidly as possible to help restore a sense of normalcy. Thus immediate shelter needs for large numbers of people are easy to fill on very short notice. The problem becomes the difficulty of finding long term sheltering for small numbers of people in the under 50 person range; in Hampton Roads the problem was sheltering for 14-15 people. This is complicated by demographic realities that may mean these families need to remain in the school district of their children due to transportation limitations or special education requirements.
(10) Post-impact sheltering can be enhanced by the development of post-impact shelters. These do not have to meet the Red Cross's stringent requirements for hurricane shelters as they will not be exposed to high wind forces or flooding. The critical issues appear to be adequate restrooms and shower facilities. Local churches should contact their American Red Cross chapters to determine requirements and negotiate appropriate agreements.
MASS FEEDING:
(11) The Virginia Federation of Foodbanks received release for commodities and school food on Tuesday prior to storm arrival; as a result when shelters were opened in schools, food was available for use in those shelters. In Hampton Roads, the Foodbanks staged truckloads of food at designated locations identified in conjunction with the Red Cross. In the case of Norfolk, the actual loaded trucks were staged in their service areas due to flooding and access concerns.
(12) From 16 September to 3 October 2003, the Foodbanks moved 1,800,000 pounds of food worth $1,300,000 in support of Hurricane Isabel needs. With 13 affiliated Foodbanks in the state (there are also other, generally smaller, organizations that use the term Foodbank, but which are not affiliated with the Virginia Federation of Foodbanks) the system was able to draw from a wide stock, and Foodbanks in unaffected areas conducted food drives to maintain stocks. In addition, their parent organization, America's Second Harvest, delivered food from as far away as California. As a result of Hurricane Isabel experiences, all Virginia Foodbanks now are stocked with emergency drinking water. Although the Foodbanks were able to meet needs for Hurricane Isabel, the large expenditures of food mean that they are going into one of their normal high demand feeding seasons with their stocks low.
(13) Normally the Foodbank operates to support other agencies (note that in disasters the Foodbanks do not charge the normal shared maintenance fee associated with food supply) and does not provide individual services. However, in Hurricane Isabel the disruption of normal services and access issues meant that the Foodbanks started to provide direct service to individual clients. One resulting problem was client frustration - the Central Virginia Foodbank had to hire off duty police officers to maintain order in its waiting lines. For the first time ever in a disaster, the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency referred clients directly to Foodbanks. The demand was so heavy that Foodbanks in the impact area ran out of boxes.
(14) Food pantries in many churches in Hampton Roads operated at 400% of their normal capacities. Donations from parish members kept the pantries stocked, so that at the end of mass feeding operations, the food pantries remained at normal stock levels. In addition, Catholic Charities distributed $50.00 credit cards for emergency food purchases. One significant issue that surfaced was the development and distribution by the Disaster Recovery Centers of unofficial lists of food distribution points - these were largely in error, resulting in the direction of clients to sites that did not have food available. Although this process appears to have been used successfully by Disaster Recovery Center staffs in other disasters in other states, it ignored long standing procedures used in Virginia through which the Foodbanks served as the referral agencies, using their normal network of over 3000 local food distributing agencies across the state.
(15) Southern Baptist response coordination started on Monday, 15 September. The Southern Baptists serve as the cooking arm for hot meals distributed by the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. For this event, Southern Baptist mobile kitchens from Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Alabama responded - North Carolina units stayed in North Carolina to meet in-state needs. The deployment of mobile kitchens included 3 supporting the Salvation Army in Norfolk, 3 supporting the Salvation Army in the District of Columbia, and 10 supporting the Red Cross in Virginia. The first 2 kitchens were on the ground on Saturday, 20 September, 6 were deployed by 1200 on Sunday, 21 September, and 10 were deployed on Wednesday, 24 September. The last kitchens completed operations on 7 October and departed for their home stations on 8 October. In the process they cooked approximately 1,000,000 meals.
(16) The six largest kitchens deployed had a capacity of 20,000 meals a day, and were never pushed to this capacity. However, some of the smaller kitchens operated at over 100% of capacity. Each kitchen was staffed by 20 to 25 persons. A number of interesting issues surfaced - one kitchen was operating a drive through service with people driving up and indicating how many meals they needed. In another case, the staff of a fast food restaurant were eating at a kitchen. Neither of these was appropriate use of resources intended for disaster victims. In the first week, supplies were a significant issue with the kitchens using up everything that was available, with shortages in food, Cambros (a trade name for large meal storage containers used by the Red Cross Emergency Response vehicles), and staff. Communications was also an issue based on use of cellular telephones - the arrival of Southern Baptists amateur radio operators helped improve reliability of communications.
(17) Food for pets was not reported as a major problem. The primary source is Petco, which will donate food if needed, and had food available for this disaster. The logical distribution point is the Foodbanks, some of which do stock limited pet food supplies for clients.
(18) The emergency food stamp program was not implemented using the expedited process that is available for rapid activation in disasters. As a result, the first distribution of emergency food stamps did not come until 7 to 8 days into the disaster; this distribution took a significant amount of pressure off the Foodbanks. Emergency food stamps are for any disaster victim, not just the normal clients, although the first step in emergency distribution is to add one half month to the normal food stamp cards of the regular clients.
DONATIONS COORDINATION:
(19) At the state donations coordination center in the Disaster Field Office, approximately 5 of 1300 calls dealt with food needs. Over 95% of the calls were tree and debris removal and tree damage related. Approximately 30 calls offering monetary donations have been received, all of them for small amounts. This is a significant change from previous events, and suggests a possible shift in the importance of donation management in disasters. Based on experience, staff discussion of the issue, and conversations with users of the donations hot line, it appears that three factors are at work. First, the wide area coverage of the disaster meant that a substantial portion of the potential donations sources were also impacted by the disasters. Second, many potential donors had already helped through ad hoc assistance to the neighbors down the street. And third, people are gifted out in the aftermath of 11 September 2001.
OTHER OPERATIONS:
(22) The Southern Baptists also provided 12 shower trailers, 4 amateur radio communications trailers, 1 laundry unit, and numerous chain saw crews.
WORKS CITED:
American Disaster Reserve. The Virtual Emergency Operations Center. "Situation Briefing Number 6." location http://www.virtualeoc.org/sitbriefU.html; Richmond, Virginia, United States of America; The Virtual Emergency Operations Center; 19 September 2003.
Commonwealth of Virginia. Department of Emergency Management. "Commonwealth Situation Report #31." Richmond, Virginia, United States of America; Virginia Department of Emergency Management; 23 October 2003.
United States. 104th Congress. Public Law 104-191 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. location http://aspe.hhs.gov/admnsimp/pl104191.htm; Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America; Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Civil Rights - HIPAA; 1996.
United States. National Weather Service. Tropical Prediction Center. National Hurricane center. "Monthly Tropical Weather Summary." location http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2003/tws/MIATWSAT_sep.shtml?; Miami, Florida, United States of America; National Hurricane Center; 1 October 2003.
Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster. Fall Gathering. Meeting. Missionary Learning Center, Rockville, Virginia, United States of America; 23-24 October 2003.