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Red Cross prepares for disaster
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Posted on Sep 29 1999
Nearly 30 volunteers and two staff gathered last Saturday at the Northern Mariana Islands Chapter of the American Red Cross to test their training for disaster response.
Emergency Services Director Charito Schadeck provided the participants with information to simulate a larger scale apartment fire affecting multiple families.
“The volunteers were challenged with various scenarios including victims that did not speak English victims that were traumatized and could not speak at all as well as elderly victims and victims that also happened to be Red Cross volunteers. These unique situations will arise in the future and now these volunteer caseworkers will have some experience in dealing with them,” said Schadeck.
As the Red Cross is a volunteer-led organization, the disaster operation was also volunteer led with several volunteers acting in leadership roles. “Many people look at the paid staff in many organizations as the leaders, but with the Red Cross volunteers, whether they are board members or disaster leadership, are really the ones that make the work of the Red Cross possible and exercises such as the drill prepare these volunteers to act in their supervisory roles they have been trained for,” noted Executive Director Cassandra Ely.
All in all the volunteers spent nearly four hours learning, organizing and executing their response.
The NMI Chapter is planning to hold a drill such as this yearly and is also looking to hold similar drills on the islands of Rota and Tinian.
