Red Cross Blogs

Logistics of disaster relief – part one

By Sarah Oughton
August 20, 2009 at 10:57 am

When disaster strikes, anywhere in the world, it’s likely you’ll turn on the TV and see the Red Cross is already there.

As you watch boxes of food, blankets and other life-saving items being distributed, have you ever wondered exactly how they got there so quickly?

This is the first in a series of podcasts exploring the role of our logistics emergency response unit and how it responds to international emergencies.

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Sarah: When disaster strikes, anywhere in the world – whether it be a natural disaster such as the tsunami in 2004 or conflict, like the Gaza crisis in 2009 – it’s likely you’ll turn on the TV and see the Red Cross is already there.

As you watch boxes of food, blankets and other life-saving items being distributed, have you ever wondered exactly how they got there so quickly?

I’m Sarah Oughton, international writer at the British Red Cross. This is the first in a series of podcasts exploring the role of our logistics emergency response unit and how it responds to international emergencies.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is the largest humanitarian organisation in the world, with almost every country having its own Red Cross or Red Crescent society. Local volunteers are the lifeblood of the organisation, always on the frontline and the first to respond to disasters.

But of course when vast regions are devastated by disaster – like the earthquake in China which affected eight provinces in 2008 – local Red Cross staff and volunteers will also be affected. Though this may not stop them responding to the needs of the people around them, they may also request international assistance.

Although my day job for the British Red Cross is writing about our international work for our website and publications, I’ve also been a member of our emergency response unit for the past five years.

You may be puzzled as to why the Red Cross would send a writer as part of a logistics team, but in these podcasts we’ll find out more about the types of people employed on overseas missions.

Richard North, one of our logistics officers responsible for running the emergency response unit, explains what the ERU does in the aftermath of a disaster.

Richard: Okay, the emergency response unit it’s, the idea is that you’ve got pre-trained teams with the equipment all available basically 24/7. So if there’s a big disaster we can send the team with the equipment and they can set up and be running pretty much as soon as they land in whichever country or area they are trying to work.

And they’ve got everything there that they need, so it includes all the personal field items, camping equipment so that they can survive in the field. It’s got vehicles, generators, communications equipment, various types of tents for storage and accommodation.

Sarah: And can you tell me about the disasters that you’ve personally been involved in responding to when you’ve been on the ERU?

Richard: Last year I was working in Bangladesh following the cyclone that hit there, so I was there for two months. My function was logistics so its organising warehousing, its sorting out trucks, its sorting out loaders, getting things customs cleared, its dealing with the local authority, making sure that we can get the goods into country, we can track them, to make sure that they can be handed over to the beneficiaries.

Sarah: Have you been in a situation where you felt out of control or you’re going into very different countries, cultures and climates? What’s some of the hardest things you’ve had to deal with?

Richard: Sometimes you’re faced with situations that can be quite difficult. It could be cultural differences if you’re trying to get something achieved or accomplished and it’s very frustrating because you’re facing lots of bureaucracy. Or there could be other issues going on behind the scenes, cultural issues that make the job you’re doing a little bit more difficult. But I tend to find that wherever we work, we’re working through the local Red Cross or Red Crescent, you’ve got your local volunteers, and they are a fantastic resource.

They’ve got the local knowledge, they know the geography, where you can get food and fuel from. They know how far the different locations are away. They can find information for you about warehousing that’s available. They’ve got all this local knowledge which we can tap into. It makes our jobs as international delegates a little bit easier. But sometimes you’re faced with difficult situations.

Probably one of the hardest ones is that you’re working quite long hours day after day maybe at the airport and suddenly you get a TV crew that come up to you and ask you questions, and it may be challenging questions and you have to give a good, considered response and not say I’m too busy or not now. You’ve got to try and utilise sources like the media so we can get out message across about what the Red Cross is doing and how we’re working.

Sarah: What for you is the most interesting part of the job or one of the most interesting missions that you’ve been on?

Richard: There are some very interesting places you get to see. But for me the key to it is just having the chance to speak to the people that we’re trying to help. It can be a lot of work to get some tents and blankets, pots and pans to a number of families that have lost their homes in an earthquake, but once you actually speak to the people through a translator and say look how is this for you; these tents we gave you, these blankets, pots and pans. Are they of any use? The feedback you get is quite amazing because people will say without organisations like the Red Cross we’d have nothing, we’d be on the streets, we’d be freezing and have nothing.

It’s humbling because I go out there as a delegate for one month or two months but then I’m back home to my normal life. But these people are caught up in these disasters and they’re going to have to live in that situation for months, or even sometimes years. Big earthquakes can destroy whole cities and it takes 20 years to sometimes rebuild these cities to what they were before.

Sarah: Disasters can strike anywhere, for example there could be an earthquake in Afghanistan, how would you feel about going into that situation? Would you refuse to go or would you still go?

Richard: In my career with the Red Cross I’ve worked in a number of countries, some countries that you’d say were quite difficult environments. I’ve been in Afghanistan, Iran and various parts of Indonesia. I’ve always been happy and willing to go into these various countries because I know that the Red Cross is an organisation that has good systems in place.

If the organisation felt that it was too difficult or dangerous then they would not send international delegates, so that’s always at the back of my mind. So if the Red Cross are happy to send me somewhere, I’m willing to go there and try and do the best I can.

But sometimes you can be faced with difficult situations. I’d say that one of the biggest dangers for delegates is travelling around in vehicles on roads in these areas we work. The biggest killer of delegates is actually road traffic accidents.

Sarah: What would you say to somebody who was thinking about applying to be on the ERU?

Richard: I’d definitely encourage them, if they have the aptitude, the necessary background and experience I would absolutely encourage them to make the application.

There’s lots of information available on the Red Cross website, it gives lots of details about the ERU, the concept of how it works, and if you feel like you’ve got some kind of logistics background and you would be interested in working in some quite different areas, quite remote areas, some unusual locations trying to help your fellow man, fantastic.

Working for the Red Cross overseas I’ve been in some very interesting situations, places that you would never go to as a normal tourist. But you’re working with some great people and because, if you go to any of these countries where we work there’s typically some kind of local Red Cross or Red Crescent presence and you’ve automatically got that immediate bond and link between the two of you.

So you’re working with lots of people in locations around the world but its fantastic that we’ve got this commonality between us. And it’s a bit of a cliché, but I always think of it as a big family, but that’s what it is and that’s what makes it a great experience to work for them.

Sarah: Being a member of the emergency response unit is not a full time job – people are only employed for the period that they’re sent on a mission.

The ERU works on a roster system and for each month of the year a team of four people are on call. Team members need to commit to being on call for at least one month every year. This basically means being on stand-by with bags packed, so at any time during the month you could receive a phone call saying there’s been a disaster and we need you and the rest of the team to deploy in the next 24 hours.

We recruit people with different levels of experience and backgrounds appropriate for the different roles within the team. There are four roles and you can find out more about these in upcoming podcasts.

For further information visit redcross.org.uk/eru and to find out more about the recruitment process email: recruitment@redcross.org.uk

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Tags: audio, Emergencies, emergency response unit, ERU, ERU podcasts

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 10:57 am and is filed under Emergencies, Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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