Red Cross Blogs

Emily Knox

Monday Feb 8th:

There was a lot of activity at the warehouse today. We loaded trucks for Haiti as per the latest requisition from the field. Shelter is a priority so we sent thousands of family tents and tarpaulins. The ten 40 ft containers that will have left by lunchtime tomorrow are carrying 150 tonnes of tents, tarpaulins and kitchen sets. Meanwhile another 150 tonnes is making its way from Rio Haina port to Haiti. Attached is a picture of the mega-forklift that moves containers at the port that Gareth was impressed with.

It’s only three days now until my replacement arrives with the second rotation team so I’m trying to get things ready for the handover. It’s weird to think that I will be leaving. It’s only been just over 3 weeks but it feels like a lifetime. I will miss being able to wear a t-shirt outside in the evening. I will also miss our journeys back from the warehouse, which are full of lively banter and music. Dominicans love music and the driver and volunteers usually start singing on the way home – bachata, meringue, even mambo… It’s a welcome relief from the stresses of the day!

15th Feb:
Well, it is my last day tomorrow… David and I return to the UK. Maria my replacement has arrived and I am in the process of handing over the gauntlet to her. Looking forward to the 24 hour sleep that I have booked myself in for on my first day back!

Gareth has been called to Haiti so he took the 9 hour bus trip yesterday to Port-Au-Prince. The teams over there are reaching 2,500 families a day (working on 5 persons per family) with essential items such as tarpaulins, kitchen sets and mosquito nets. For me, it’s hard being based over the border as you don’t get to see first-hand people making use of the items being sent. However, I am glad to have been part of it.

Heard it’s been snowing back home, which is going to be a bit of a shock to the system after a month of Dominican heat!

So, thanks for reading and hasta luego…

Cross posted from the British Red Cross international diary

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Tags: emily knox, ERU, Haiti, logistics, mass sanitation
Posted in Emergencies

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Spent most of today training new assistant Leslie on the LOGIC software that we use to track goods. I’m happy that she has already worked for a shipping company so she is familiar with logistics. We speak an interesting mix of Spanglish but her English far outweighs my Spanish.. I apparently have a pronunciation problem with the word for age, which I pronounce as bottom. Very unfortunate.

Meanwhile, thousands of American Red Cross blankets and Kuwaiti Red Crescent tents have been arriving at the warehouse and the team in Haiti have asked us to send 10,000 mosquito nets…

Gareth has been keeping an eye on the port now that shipping is coming in, Carl our new Air Ops (Antonio finished his mission yesterday) found the Danish plane we’d been looking for and David has been adeptly dealing with the usual trials and tribulations of team leader diplomacy.

Image © Emily Knox/BRC

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Tags: emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, logistics
Posted in Emergencies

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Well, I’ve managed to get a cold despite the hot weather! It has not deterred me from the constant flow of waybills out and waybills in that come my way though. My current bugbear is if goods do not have their tracking number attached.. causes us lots of headaches..!! I feel sometimes as if I’m the grumpy finance woman glued to her computer in the warehouse office all day only to exit at full pace into the warehouse to ask for the answer to a question about buckets or tarpaulins. Oh, I’m not really grumpy – I would say smiley but stressed.

In one of those brief trips into the warehouse, I had a chat with one of our warehouse team leaders, Adalberto. Adalberto is 30 and from Santo Domingo and has worked for the Dominican Red Cross for 6 years. Initially during this operation he organised the warehouse at the Dominican Red Cross Headquarters, sorting and dispatching unsolicited goods (clothing, food) to Haiti. Now he is a key part of the operation here at our main warehouse. Adalberto said it was a satisfying experience as he felt like he was contributing more actually loading and unloading goods instead of sitting in an office. As for working with ‘foreigners’ like us, Adalberto said he thought it would be more difficult but it wasn’t. He said, ‘Walking down the hall you looked unapproachable, but after I got to work with you all I noticed you were wonderful people to work with’. Oh I feel better now..! But Kenny and I agreed we must work on our hall-walking…

Image © BRC

Donate now to the British Red Cross Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

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Tags: disaster response, earthquake, emergency response, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, volunteer
Posted in Emergencies

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Moved office to the warehouse, which is great for me as I don’t get disturbed by the hustle and bustle of the operations centre. However, I am getting to know the Dominican Republic mosquitos well.. Those of you who know me won’t be surprised to hear that I have various welt-like bites even on my face! Don’t worry I am taking my malaria tablets…

So, our team has added a few more countries to it. Kenny from Scotland who is managing one of our warehouses and Gareth from Wales who is doing a recce of one of the seaports. We’ve also had the Logs Coordinator over from Haiti for the last few days. He said that the other emergency response units (ERU) such as the hospital ERUs and water ERUs are reaching thousands with medical care and the production of millions of litres of clean water a day. It feels good to hear that the things we move are helping people.

Image © BRC

Donate now to the British Red Cross Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

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Tags: aid, emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, logistics, sanitation, water and sanitation
Posted in Emergencies

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So, our British Red Cross logistics team of four is now a joint British-Spanish team. Whilst Peter and Theo rough it in Haiti building latrines, our new teammates Antonio and Pedro Pablo have been getting stuck into the frenzy that is the airport and warehouse.

I have been mainly creating stock reports, bugging people for paperwork and working on the budget. There is, of course, also the constant flow of calls and messages to deal with and demands for information. I have been intrigued by how many ways people try and convey the urgency of their emails. Red flag, red exclamation mark, subject ‘Top Priority’ , ‘Urgent’, ‘Important’ and my favourite ‘Top Urgent’. 

I’m in daily contact now with Haiti. Rosemary from the American Red Cross, who is working with the Swiss Red Cross logistics ERU, emails and calls me on the Sat phone to find out the latest on what has arrived in Santo Domingo. This helps them relay to the relief teams what is available and they then put in a requisition for stock to be moved. 

In other news, I am getting a very faint farmer’s tan.

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Tags: emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, sanitation, video, water and sanitation
Posted in Emergencies

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Hola! Well, the team were looking distinctively bleary-eyed this morning at breakfast. It’s been a stressful couple of days with the pressure of planes landing in a congested airport and challenges with storage in Haiti. Then there was the further tremor in Haiti, which I have to say I didn’t notice here but quite a few others did!

I’ve spent most of the day behind the computer… it’s like a bombardment of emails about a million things – mainly flight and cargo details, and changes for flights and changes back again. Everyone is doing all they can to get one of the precious ‘red’ slots at Port-Au-Prince airport to land. If they don’t make it, they get diverted to us often with little or no notice.

Recently, our airport has become congested and some planes have been diverted to Puerto Plata airport. All this makes my job of tracking goods more complicated and I spent a long time pouring over the schedule of flights and trying to match it to what David said had arrived at the airport.

Today, with the help of a lot of Dominican Republic Red Cross volunteers, David unloaded the massive Antonov plane that carried 10,000 blankets, 5,000 tarpaulins, 8,500 jerrycans, 1,500 mosquito nets, 1000 kitchen sets, 4,000 buckets and six vehicles.

Meanwhile, Peter our team leader has been called to Haiti to lead the mass sanitation ERU, which London will be arriving on Thursday evening. The mass sanitation ERU builds latrines and carries out hygiene promotion work to help prevent outbreaks of serious disease, which is always a danger.

Anyway, for me this means sadly we lose both Peter and Theo! Our team will be merged with the Spanish Red Cross team by borrowing two of their logisticians.

Well, I’m not too sure how to make my world of stock reports, finance and airway bills an exciting read for you. Just to say that the small pleasures I am enjoying are the warm breeze (it’s about 25-28 degrees here) and fried plantain! However, I can never fully relax as there is always the pressure of the urgency of everything that hovers in the back (or forefront!) of my mind. Nothing like a situation report from Haiti to sharpen the senses and help me focus on the job at hand..

If you would like to make a donation to the British Red Cross Haiti Earthquake Appeal please visit the our website or call 0370 60 60 900

Listen to an interview with Sharon Reader, mass sanitation ERU delegate, on her way out to Haiti.

Image 1 © Matthew Percival/BRC

Image 2 and 3 © Emily Knox/BRC

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Tags: emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, logistics, sanitation, video, water and sanitation
Posted in Emergencies

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Today flew by. Arrived at the Dominican Red Cross office first thing to meet David’s (air operations) interpreter and they went off for the day to the airport to unload the planeloads coming in. Spent time setting up the software that tracks stock and investigating the flow of goods from prior to our arrival.

I was hoping to speak to my counterpart in the Swiss Red Cross Logistics ERU but communication between Haiti and Dominican Republic remains difficult. Sat phones work and sometimes mobiles, but we weren’t able to get through to each other.

I was happy that texts seem to work so we can keep in touch and co-ordinate our systems. Their team are also using a BGAN satellite device which means they have some access to internet, which means we are starting to get more first-hand information.

Meanwhile, our logistician Theo was out and about identifying a suitable warehouse that we could use should the main hub remain in Santo Domingo. We also had a visit from Mr. Tadateru Konoe, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies who was on his way to Haiti.

In the afternoon, I had a conversation with the person in charge of the Dominican Republic Red Cross emergency centre, Fernando Vasquez. He is in charge of organising volunteers and when I spoke with him they were in the midst of rotating volunteers for Haiti. Fernando was sending 42 Red Cross volunteers to Port-Au-Prince to replace the 30 volunteers who have been there for the last five days.  Dominican Republic Red Cross volunteers have been working constantly since the earthquake struck carrying out first aid, moving dead bodies and distributing relief items.

In addition, the Dominican Republic Red Cross runs a blood bank and they have sent 200 bags of blood to Haiti since the earthquake. Specialist staff and volunteers use the blood to help treat those injured by the quake.

Fernando said he is rotating the volunteers every five days as the work is tough and distressing. After they return, the volunteers will receive some psychosocial support to help them recover from what they’ve seen. I was very moved by what I saw today – people volunteering their time and putting themselves in what is a very difficult security situation in order to help others. That for me is the Red Cross in action.

If you would like to make a donation to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal please visit the DEC website or call 0370 60 60 900

Image 1 © Matthew Percival/BRC

Image 2 © Emily Knox/BRC

Image 3 © Emily Knox/BRC

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Tags: emergency response, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, logistics, logistics ERU
Posted in Emergencies

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Damage to the air and sea ports is causing huge logistical challenges in getting urgent supplies into the country. While the airport has now re-opened it cannot cope with the high volume of planes arriving, and many flights are being re-routed to Santo Domingo, in the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

The ERU team is based in Santo Domingo and is now co-ordinating delivery of relief goods arriving from the Red Cross warehouse in Panama. Emily reports back:

Well, it’s the end of my first and very long day in Santo Domingo. Having arrived late last night, passing newly arrived Chinese sniffer rescue dogs at the airport, I was worried I might not wake up early enough today. However, the advantage of the time difference meant I was wide awake at 6am and ready to get on with things.

I spent most of the day at the office of the Dominican Republic Red Cross who have been dealing with the logistics so far. Because of the damage to the port at Port-Au-Prince a lot of cargo is being rerouted to Santo Domingo, then forwarded on by road over the border. The Dominican Republic Red Cross have been doing an incredible job dealing with all the shipments coming in, especially when some planes land with no prior warning or paperwork.

In addition, they have volunteers in Haiti helping to distribute relief items and as well as organising the giving of blood. This afternoon as I passed the entrance to the Dominican Republic Red Cross office I saw large groups of Red Cross volunteers loading water destined for Haiti.

Aside from sorting out our team finances today, I met various Red Cross colleagues from the National Society, the Spanish Red Cross and even the Benelux Red Cross (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg), and did my part to make sense of the ‘pipeline’ so that we know what planes and goods are coming in. The pipeline is basically a schedule giving all the details of the planes, arrival times, the cargo they are carrying, how much it weighs – everything we need to know to work out how to organise getting it trucked in to Haiti and distributed to those who so desperately need it.

I also tried to speak to my Swiss Red Cross logistics ERU counterpart who is in Haiti but was unable to get through… Meanwhile, my colleague David spent his day at the airport ensuring that the final part of the four shipments of the Norwegian Red Cross field hospital (which fit into two 40ft containers!) was safely seen through customs and put on the road to Jimani for onward travel Prince Au Port.

Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings…

If you would like to make a donation to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal please visit the DEC website or call 0370 60 60 900

Image 1 © Matt Percival/BRC

Image 2 © Emily Knox/BRC

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Tags: Dominican Republic, emergency aid, emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, logistics, Port au Prince
Posted in Emergencies

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