Birmingham Solves Donation Distribution Dilemma during Tornado Recovery
The Challenge:
Every year, tornadoes rip through dozens of towns leaving behind a swath of ruined houses, scattered belongings, and injured people. On April 8, 1998, residents near Birmingham, Alabama faced the aftermath of such a crisis. This episode was especially brutal as scientists determined the tornado to be an F-5-level twister. An F-5 is the most intense tornado with wind speeds of 261 to 318 miles per hour (mph). On average, only one F-5 tornado hits the United States each year. According to The Birmingham News, this tornado disaster forced two schools, two fire stations, four churches, 1,177 homes and many lives to be rebuilt. For specific information about the Birmingham tornado, see: www.al.com/specialreport/tornado98.html.
The Solution:
Officials from the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency had to respond quickly and efficiently to help people recover from the crisis and to help them start thinking about rebuilding all that was lost. Among the tools they used was Essential Technologies Inc.'s EIS/GEM InfoBook (EIS/GEM) software. By using EIS/GEM, emergency response teams were able to effectively distribute donated goods and services to tornado victims. Because the coordination of this effort - to match materials on hand with the hands that need them most - is a critical, difficult and complex part of the disaster recovery process, officials decided to use their EIS/GEM software to improve and simplify the process.
"Good natured people come out of the woodwork in a disaster," explains Jim Cook, a former Sales Representative for Essential who previously served in the Atlanta-Fulton County Office of Emergency Management for 18 years. "People say things like, 'I have a truck and a good strong back,' or 'I know how to use a keyboard,' or 'I can't lift anything heavy, but I've been through this before and I can listen.' At a time when there is so much damage to recover from, nothing that is offered can be turned away. Getting those offerings to the right people can be complicated though.
"Kind-hearted people from all over the country send truckloads of all sorts of random stuff - laundry detergent, hand soap, canned goods, clothes - just trying and hoping to do the right thing," Cook continues. He relates a story of how a truckload of donated sweaters unfortunately sat in a parking lot during Hurricane Hugo. "If workers don't have a way to receive, catalog and redistribute donations, they may never get to where they are needed the most."
The Results:
To address this challenge, the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency established a warehouse to receive and distribute all of the donated goods for tornado victims. Team members used EIS/GEM, which was installed on a laptop computer, to track and monitor the inventory.
"There are a lot of experienced EIS/GEM users in Alabama," Cook states. "And, fortunately, many had attended a regional 'refresher' training seminar for the software only a month before the tornado disaster occurred."
However, even though there were many experienced EIS/GEM users in the area, a Technical Support representative from Essential's corporate headquarters office in Rockville, MD., flew down and assisted officials on-site for a few days during the initial recovery process.
"When you use the software live, you suddenly have questions you didn't have in the training session," Cook concludes. Together, with the proper preparation, technology and kind-hearted people, the team was able to create and implement a "good working strategy for response and recovery."
