Planning for disaster/humanitarian aid?

Factual Questions
1

A conversation at work today led me to wonder about agencies with the mission of planning for disasters and how they determine how much aid to send in. I tried looking at various sites, including the Red Cross, USAID, FEMA (yeah, I know) and a few others that came up when I tried various google searches. I had no luck finding what I wanted and thought I’d look to the font of all knowledge.

What I wanted to know is if there’s a rule of thumb used to figure how much stuff needs to be sent to the area in need. For example, if a city of 100,000 experiences a catastrophe leaving them without power or water or shelter or any of that good stuff, would the aid agency open their Big Book of Aid and find that for that population, they’d need XX tons of assorted food and supplies? I’m assuming there are guidelines of how much food per person per day, and how much water, and even how many diapers or toothbrushes or blankets would be needed.

So, is there a site that has such guidelines? Surely someone will have better luck searching than I did…

2

I don’t know but this thread was undeservingly ignored and not answered. I have never bumped a thread before, so you are my first bump.

3

I also don’t have an answer to your question, but I will be undergoing Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training next weekend and maybe this topic will come up. If so, I’ll come back and let you know.

One place to start looking might be the Department of Homeland Security website:
http://www.dhs.gov

4

I’m not sure exactly how they calculate how much is needed per person, though it seems there’s likely guidelines for it. I do know that they use software/databases tied to geographic/population data which tells them how many sandbags/foodstuffs/other supplies are where, what vulnerable populations and facilities lie within particular areas, etc. So, for example, a flood occurs in a particular area, they do a search on that area on a map (either by zip code or even using a mouse to draw boundary lines around a particular area, then up pop icons showing where supplies of sandbags, trucks, ice, evacuation routes, schools, hospitals, chemical plants, etc., so they can direct deployment of resources effectively.

5

I don’t think these are calculations that can be made long-distance.

The organisation I worked for would go through the following stages: in the first few hours we would monitor media coverage and try to make contact with people in situ - staff members if they have an office there, local partner organisations and other contacts such as the local Red Cross, and local authorities, to get as much information as possible.

While this is going on we would assemble a rapid emergency assessment team and try to get them in as soon as possible. This usually consists of a logistician, water engineer, health adviser, nutritionist etc. Of course, this varies according to the nature/magnitude/location of the disaster.

The team would have to quickly find out - what the needs are/who else is involved/what are they doing/planning to do - apart from visiting affected areas, and speaking to those directly affected, the team has to make contact with other organisations working or planning to work in the area, and to the local and national authorities, in order to get an idea of what is already being planned, so that efforts are not duplicated.

Based on this, the organisation will make a decision on whether they have a role to play, and what that role should be.

In parallel to all this, the organisation’s fundraisers are frantically trying to make sure that enough funding is coming through from the larger donors that usually cough up money in these situations.

A lot of organisations have eyewitness reports/diaries/blogs on their websites from staff members, giving a detailed account of their day-to-day work.

Relief Web is a comprehensive resource you might find interesting.

6

Thanks, all. When this plummeted the first day, I forgot I’d posted the question.

Martha, I especially appreciate your insight. I had no idea how complex the process is. Then again, disasters aren’t exactly like each other, so it makes sense each is handled as a unique event.

7

[QUOTE=FairyChatMom]

What I wanted to know is if there’s a rule of thumb used to figure how much stuff needs to be sent to the area in need. For example, if a city of 100,000 experiences a catastrophe leaving them without power or water or shelter or any of that good stuff, would the aid agency open their Big Book of Aid and find that for that population, they’d need XX tons of assorted food and supplies? I’m assuming there are guidelines of how much food per person per day, and how much water, and even how many diapers or toothbrushes or blankets would be needed.
QUOTE]

The people I work with are all experts in emergency management, so I collared one of them and asked him. We do have a logistics expert, but he’s not around, so couldn’t ask him.

The short answer was that there’s no real way of making those sorts of calculations, because you can’t do an assessment just on the basis of population. A city of 100,000 might be affected, but it might only be 5,000 people who need emergency assistance, the others might be in areas which are unaffected, might be well-prepared and don’t require help, or might go to relatives/friends in unaffected areas.

So provision of assistance will be on an as-needs basis, according the on-the-ground evaluation teams, which is why they need to come in as soon as possible.

However, in Australia at least, municipal (i.e. local government) emergency response plans will include information about the kinds of supplies likely to be needed in a disaster and contact information for contractors who can provide the supplies.

Depending on the kind and magnitude of disaster the local or State authorities may then request further help from National authorities, who will have access to such things as national stockpiles if necessary.

I think that if you use the term “disaster logistics” you’re likely to find the kind of information you’re looking for.

FEMA: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/frp/frplm.htm

http://www.inboundlogistics.com/articles/reader/reader0104.shtml

8

Correct and the single greatest problem is not supplies or equipment. Almost any EMS agency has enough materials on hand to operate for a week or two of normal call volume without worrying about stock levels, so in a nutshell 2-3 days worth can hit you at once without really causing any major shortages. Also if a specific supply need comes up neighboring agencies will generally be more than happy to offer up supplies to cover for a few days until replacements can arrive.

The problem is usually manpower and vehicles. Pulling in all off duty personell still only gets you maybe 2.5 times the staffing and those people could very well be affected by the same disaster making then unable to report to work effectively.

So an EMS agency might be able to pull in a double crew but its unlikely to have more than 10-15% of its vehicles not online at any given time. You can stretch things by running heavier crews on fire apparatus and ambulances and not using the normal mutual aid patterns like fire responding to medical aid calls since ambulances are carrying extra hands for the day, and engines dealing with small fires alone carrying a 4th and or 5th crewmember where only 3 would normally be on a given piece of apparatus.

Also this type of thing is exactly why CERT teams are being formed. Being able to pull a local volunteer aid group to provide runners, basic first aid, light search & rescue, lift/carry assistance, and limited fire supression. In many cases they can also do things like help overhaul/cleanup suppressed fires and let the fire dept handle active fires.

If EMS is swamped a well led CERT team could make it far more manageable providing potentially hundreds of trained bodies that already are familiar with interfacing with EMS command structure.