Red Cross Prepares for Possible Disasters

"Do you know what the tornado was like? It was scary," Hannah Dodson said jumping into the conversation as her father, Victor Dodson, described the recent .

"I was scared out of my wits," she said.

Victor Dodson, his wife Leila and their three daughters, Hannah, 8, Emma, 11, and Julia, 6, attended the shelter demonstration on Saturday.

The Dodson family was in Baltimore visiting Victor's father, who is a part of the United Way of Central Maryland's Harford County Community Partnership Board.

After experiencing great help from the government, local churches and thousands of volunteers in Alabama, Victor said yesterday's simulation tour mirrored the aid people received back home.

"I went to one disaster response area I was helping out," Victor said. "It was pretty similar. They had a playroom for the kids. It wasn't a Red Cross one, but I know they were there. There were just so many tornadoes."

"The one here is very thorough," he said.

On Saturday morning, the Red Cross gave tours to allow people to experience what it would be like to be in a shelter after a disaster hit the area.

The tour had eight stops—each stop pinpointed important aspects to the shelter: logistics, registration, health and mental health services, child care, shelter manager responsibilities and communication, dormitory area, pets and feeding.

Red Cross volunteers guided several groups through the building to each stop, where an expert was on standby to inform the groups about what goes on at their station.

"It was quite the experience," Shirley Hewitt said. Hewitt is an executive assistant for W.R. Grace & Co., but is also a Red Cross volunteer.

The shelter simulation showcased areas from registration, where Red Cross volunteers would learn about you and take all of your information to keep on record at the shelter, to a playroom for children. Bed cots that would be used in the shelters were displayed as well.

For their final destination, tourists enjoyed a pasta and meatballs lunch provided by the Southern Baptist Convention.

"We support Red Cross in the midst of a disaster," Southern Baptist Convention spokesman and chaplain Mike Hayden said.

According to Hayden, Southern Baptist Convention provides religious services, communication services in case the phones go out, and kitchen units, which can respond to situations within at least 24 hours.

All of the members of the Southern Baptist Convention are volunteers, Hayden said, and most are on call.

Several of the organization's volunteers participated in Saturday's simulation, operating one of the kitchens the Southern Baptist Convention uses for disastrous situations.

One thousand meals were made Saturday, where Red Cross gave beans and bread dishes to the St. Vincent de Paul church and to JHR Homeless Resource Center to feed the homeless in Baltimore.

As Hayden explained the Southern Baptist Convention, what was once a sunny Saturday changed into a short but heavy rainstorm a little over an hour into the tour.

"I think we are all called to serve and it's not always in the best conditions," Hayden said. "And unfortunately, disasters are what we specialize in."

"What we've got here is a demonstration of the partnership between the Red Cross and the Southern Baptist Convention," volunteer Jim Gourley said.

Gourley is also a volunteer with the Anne Arundel County Disaster Action Team and with the  National Disaster Response Team. He has been deployed to places such as the Wisconsin floods and Hurricane Ike in Texas.

According to Gourley, the local simulation of the Red Cross shelter for disasters shows that Maryland is ready for any situation, but the key component to organizing such a task takes teamwork. This means reaching out to other organizations for a helping hand.

"Other than the federal government or the military, to do a major disaster, nobody is equipped to handle it by themselves," he said, "but in partnership you bring all these different components."

"Red Cross, being involved in sheltering and feeding for years and years, we end up working very closely with different partners to provide that service."

Besides the Southern Baptist Convention, which can provide mobile feeding up to 30,000 meals in a day,  the Charles County Animal Response Team along with the Maryland State Animal Response Team were present at the simulation.

According to tour guide and volunteer Marc Ebersberger, it is a rule that no pets are allowed in the shelters. In this case, the Charles County Animal Response Team would step in and give pets their own shelter and care.

"We had a tornado hit here last November," Red Cross volunteer and Susan G. Komen operations director Lenore Koors said, "so this is about how we're all trying to do this so that we can all be prepared."

The tour was coming to an end for the Red Cross team, and as the Dodson family were taking their last bites of pasta and meatballs, little Hannah said she is still scared that tornadoes may touch down again in Alabama.

"I hope that there's a center just like this, so that it can be better," she said.

Her older sister Emma agreed. "Instead of breaking people apart it really brought the community together in times of emergency," she said.

"I thought it would be worse, but everything just turned out for the better when people get together."