Locals Assist With Response To Isaac

Pickens County locals assisted with relief efforts in response to Hurricane Isaac

John Ligon from Pickens County traveled to Florida, according to Sarah Dow, Major Gifts Officer with the Western Carolinas Region of the American Red Cross.

Ligon brought one of the region's 12 Emergency Response Communications Vehicles to Orlando, Florida before Isaac made landfall, Dow said.

“The vehicle has its own satellite system, servers, ham radios, everything you can imagine,” Dow said. “When there's no communications systems, when they're all down, we send that out.”

Ligon agreed.

“The whole idea is for one of those trucks to be able to go to a remote location and get a small headquarters started operating while additional equipment is on the way,” he said. “We can pull into a field with nothing but a tent, table and chairs and within just a few hours have a headquarters set up.”

There are 12 ERCV vehicles across the country, Ligon said.

“They're spread throughout the country so one can respond fairly quickly to an emergency,” he said.

On August 23, Ligon left Pickens County and traveled to Charlotte where he and a partner from Winston-Salem picked up the vehicle and drove it to Orlando, Florida, to the headquarters for the Red Cross' Florida operations.

“I was part of the pre-deployment for Isaac,” Ligon said.

Orlando was one of the Red Cross' staging areas as Isaac approached, Dow said.

“Typically we stage our resources in a couple of areas, since we're not sure where the hurricanes might hit,” Dow said. “We pre-stage our supplies in two or three areas so we're able to respond immediately.

More than 3,000 trained Red Cross Disaster workers were mobilized to respond to Isaac, and half of the fleet of 300 Emergency Response vehicles were sent out.

“These are the vehicles that go out after the storms and do mobile feeding,” Dow said. “Most of those volunteers commit to be out there for a minimum of three weeks.”

Ligon and his partner were then sent to Tampa to assist in getting a forward HQ up and running, and then spent two days in Tallahassee on standby he said.

“While we were in Tallahassee, we really had no idea whether we were going to go west to the storm area or be released to go home,” Ligon said. “It really could have gone either way.”

When the storm hit land, ERCVs from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were deployed for the actual relief operation, Ligon said.

Isaac was Ligon's fourteenth national response for the Red Cross. He works in Disaster Servies Technology for the Red Cross.

“DST is responsible for setting up communications, computer operations and networking for Red Cross,” he said. “DST's clients are the people in headquarters who provide servies to the Red Cross Clients.”

“We have the capability of going into an empty building and, in less than 24 hours setting up the headquarters equivalent to a Fortune 500 company,” Ligon continued. “We set up printers, fax machines, Voice Over Internet telephones.”

In addition to the satellite dishes on the ERCV, they bring satellite dishes that can be set up on roofs or in parking lots, to provide Internet connections anywhere.

“DST is responsible for issuing cell phones to Red Cross staff and setting up radio communications between headquarters and field sites like field kitchens,” Ligon said.

He was in Florida for 10 days. For an upclose look at an ERCV, see the video with this article.

Two other Red Cross workers from Pickens County also traveled to Florida to work in shelters, she said.

“These are volunteers that are typically on call for us to respond to our own disasters, so other volunteers step up to the plate while they're gone,” Dow said. “Donations support a couple of things: One, our response and also our volunteer training. The more training our volunteers, the better, more efficient and more compassionate they'll be.”

Even as Isaac approached Florida, Red Cross workers around the state were preparing for the storm.

In 2004, storms hit the panhandle of Florida, then caused major rain and flooding in South Carolina, Dow said.

“People were out in their canoes,” she said. “So even though we were deploying volunteers for impending landfall along the Gulf, we were making sure we had enough resources here, checking our disaster trailers, making sure they had what we needed.”

As it prepares for storms and other disasters, the Red Cross must also make sure it's available to respond to smaller emergencies.

“We look at who is available, who is in town, who can respond, just in case we have an apartment fire or something like that,” Dow said. “That saves us on our response times if we know who's in town, who can arrive on the scene quickly. It's all about preparedness and responding. Benjamin Franklin said, 'By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.' That's kind of our mantra.”

You can help the Red Cross continue to help others, by donating at redcross.org

“Once you're on the web site, you have a couple of options,” Dow said. “You can choose to give locally, to disaster relief or internationally. We always honor donor intent.”

Donations can also be mailed to the Pickens County American Red Cross chapter. The address is PO Box 1303, Pickens, SC, 29671.