American Red Cross

American Red Cross

>> of just in the midst of a be global crisis, affecting us here at home, we need to remember that its hurricane season, and the red cross is doing everything that they can to prepare and be ready for the worst.

And we hope that doesn't happen, but we're happy to welcome ben williamson, the director of communications for the red cross palmetto sc ream, and good to see you, ben.

>> good to be with you, and as much as we can be.

>> we're trying, and of course we hope that we don't have a nasty hurricane season, but you have to prepare for the worst, and you'll be ready for anything.

So at this point in time, has covid-19 had any kind of negative effects on your efforts to prepare?

>> just like any other organization, probably every person has had to adapt, right?

And we as an organization have had to adapt significantly in all lines of service, disaster preparedness, and how we respond to home fires, and blood.

And specifically with hurricane season, we have been working for months, not only with the state and the emergency management department.

But each county, the emergency management department, working on the best way to handle this, and the evacuation orders.

What we talked about in the past, prioritizing hotels, motels, and dormitories, in hopes of putting people there, so we can stay socially distanced instead of opening a congregate shelter, normally, when they think about a red cross shelter, and gyms and is it churches and things like that, but we think that it may be unavoidable.

So we have a robust plan in place to make sure that we do that as safe as possible, screening before you come in, and isolation areas, staggering and changing how we do our feeding.

Separating our cots out farther, and limiting capacity.

Reducing shelter capacity and having to open up more shelters to make sure that we have enough is it distance between each person, and because of that -- >> because people have to be careful of each other, is there anything that they can do to make sure that they have all of the supplies if they need to evacuate?

>> absolutely, and we emphasize prepare, prepare, prepare, and especially this year, the conversations, if they haven't already happened, they need to be happening now, and not a week or two before a storm is supposed to make land fall.

And those conversations have to shift with your family f we have to evacuate, where is the best situation for us?

Do we need conversation was extended family or friends?

And even with other it states in general.

If we have to stay with them if we have to evacuate.

And do we have to look at hotels for our family?

Do we have to go to a red cross shelter instead?

We need to have those options and if you're packing up your bags, prescriptions, important documents, and food and water and things like that.

>> hand sanitizer and wipes.

>> right, you have to think about adding those things in, hand sanitizers and disinfecting wipes, every time go to the store, grab an item and put it in your emergency kit.

>> you need volunteers, and a hurricane is the last thing we need right now, but we still need volunteers, and people are willing to help, so what does it take to become a volunteer?

>> locally, right?

We have a robust team in south carolina.

Our goal is, if we have to open up a shelter, or multiple shelters, we want to meet that need locally instead of deploying volunteers from across the country.

So if you are interested in being a volunteer, right there, you see a list of high pryority positions, folks that are willing to step up and work in the shelters, and we're looking for people with a license, if you're a registered nurse, to help with disasters, the purpose is, we have 3,000 volunteers across the country, but we're trying to limit to putting volunteers on planes or having them in other states, we want to meet that need locally and opening up shelters, we need that support.

>> the other question, do they need to travel or will they be in the other communities or nearby?

>> nearby, that's the hope, to meet that need locally.

At the end of the day, we can always deploy from other states, and we brought in hundreds of volunteers as far as away as washington state.

But as an organization, we need to limit that, and if we have a robust team, we can meet that, and that's what we're talking about.

>> sounds like good news, ben, and i want to thank you for joining us and giving us that information.

We're going to share with our viewers and if they have extra time and they want to help, hopefully they will contact you soon enough.

Hopefully we don't have a bad hurricane season.

Thank