EAGLES WINGS FOUNDATION NEWS

Volunteers play growing role in emergency response operations

By: Mead Treadwell and Chris Nelson, Editors

July 30, 2008

Government leaders are recognizing that some of the most innovative ideas in disaster preparedness and response are coming from the private sector. That’s why they are tapping into the organizational skills and technological expertise of business and volunteer organizations to develop more effective emergency relief efforts.

A good example is the Pathfinder Task Force, an incident management team concept created in 1999 in response to Hurricane Floyd by The Eagles Wings Foundation, a faith-based non-profit organization headquartered in Palm Beach, Fla.

“Floyd was rated as a Category 5 hurricane when it hit the Bahamas,” recalled Scott Lewis, The Eagles Wings Foundation’s volunteer president. “In contrast, Hurricane Katrina was rated as a Category 3 when it came ashore in Louisiana and Mississippi.”

A former firefighter who now owns and operates a gardening business, Lewis responded when local fire chiefs in the Bahamas asked for assistance from their U.S. counterparts. Flying to the Bahamas in a single engine Cessna with other volunteers, Lewis arrived in Hope Town, Great Abaco, and found that the uncoordinated relief activities were having little success.

“Donations were not reaching victims, volunteer efforts were chaotic and military relief was not coordinated with volunteer relief,” he explained. “I worked with local leaders and groups to organize an incident command structure based on models we had studied at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsberg, Md. We set up 14 groups which dealt with matters ranging from structural evaluation to security, from utilities to finance. Everybody knew who to get their directions from and it became a team instead of an individual effort.”

That experience led Lewis to develop the Pathfinder Task Force model and set up The Eagles Wings Foundation to aid disaster victims in the United States and Caribbean region. The Pathfinders’ incident management team includes a Talk Force Leader, Operations, Planning, Logistics and Finance Sections Chiefs, a medical officer, an IT specialist, a supply depot unit leader and a military liaison officer. All are unpaid volunteers who have disaster management, fire rescue or military command experience.

Pathfinder Task Force volunteers deployed to Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina where they combined with local, state, federal and military responders to organize a 1,500 person response team. The Pathfinders relied heavily on survivors within the impact area who were organized into strike teams which used grid search patterns to conduct 126,000 door to door interviews in 14 days. The unmet special needs of homebound senior citizens and persons with disabilities were identified and targeted for the delivery of response services.

Since Katrina, the Pathfinder Task Force has developed a mobile software solution with GPS tracking that uses an inexpensive commercially available cell phone that can collect, document and collate electronic data for accurate street mapping and the identification of homebound survivors’ special needs. This technology can work in an entirely disconnected environment where cell phone towers have been destroyed or disabled. Pathfinders has also created a system to conduct instant background checks on unaffiliated volunteers as well as a compressed training program to quickly train volunteers on the new technology.

Lewis was one of the non governmental organization leaders invited to brief the United States Northern Command on volunteer assets and opportunities at a recent command sponsored disaster preparedness conference. Other participating organizations included the American Red Cross, National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Retail Industry Leaders Association and Business Executives for National Security.

Integrating public and private sector organizations into the emergency response actions of federal, state and local government agencies is essential to building a unified, effective disaster relief team.
“Pathfinders gets everyone working together regardless of their agency affiliations,” Lewis stated. “Our focus always is on survivors.”