If possible Blast, can you describe the hardest part of managing a shelter, in addition to being awake 8 pm - 8 am.
Also, do you have medical staff or medically trained volunteers ?
The shelter I normally serve at (3 activations so far) has approximately 100 trained volunteers and can serve 150 clients at any given moment. Daytime shifts have 12-14 people and the overnight shifts usually have 7-10 volunteers. Roles include registration, dormitory, kitchen, animal handlers, and public relations. People may be trained to do these different roles but only do one per shift. We have a troop of Boy Scouts to set up the cots and take initial inventory...getting everything ready to go within four hours. There are three hot meals each day, two snack tables set up for clients and volunteers, and endless amounts of coffee, cokes, and other drinks. We have a RN 24 hours a day and usually a MD during the daylight hours. Also, two police officers at all times.
I arrived at the shelter in Orange, TX on Sunday afternoon. There was only one other volunteer there. She had arrived on Saturday afternoon and started setting cots and taking inventory of supplies. When I got there she was practically in tears because she was overwhelmed. I spent the next five hours setting up cots while she counted all the supplies. The Red Cross wants a twice-daily update one what the shelters have. A 3rd volunteer arrived around 8pm and we worked through the night getting things ready. Clients began arriving the following morning. We didn't have any breakfast available so we bought a bunch of snack cakes from the nearby Dollar General. I ended up being the "trained medic" and we never had more than five volunteers present. Two law enforcement officers would come through every 4-6 hours. We had no coffee, coffee maker, or even a microwave to reheat food.
So, before the Orange, TX shelter experience I would say the hardest part is dealing with people suffering emotional breakdowns from the disaster or have gone off their psych-drugs. The second hardest is dealing with people who want to bring their animals into the shelter, against Red Cross rules. The third is the constant cleaning of bathrooms and showers because a lot of people are filthy pigs. The fourth is telling local do-gooders that we can't accept their bags of used clothing because we don't have the space or people available to do anything with it. Fifth is the endless counting of inventoried goods.
After being stationed at the Orange shelter I would say the hardest part is trying do the work of five people non-stop without coffee...while dealing with all the stuff I already mentioned. I had assumed Red Cross shelters were like McDonalds...identical across the nation. It was eye-opening to see this isn't the case.
The Red Cross is mostly just an organization that organizes stuff. They supply cots, toiletry kits, and blankets. Everything else is supplied by grocery stores, restaurants, clinics, etc that the Red Cross contracts with to supply the shelters. The Orange, TX location was a secondary shelter, only activated when other shelters are getting overrun. No contracts with supporting companies were in place. A person at the Washington D.C. was calling restaurants around the area to try and get us food but in the three days I was there the only hot food we got was some pasta bowls from Domino's pizza for supper one evening.
None of the other volunteers I was working with were from Texas or Louisiana. They were all retires that spend their days being sent from shelter to shelter, dealing with disasters all around the USA.
-Blast
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