Help Just a Phone Call Away

Written by Mason Booth, Staff Writer, RedCross.org

Oct. 15, 2002 — A strong hurricane has just hit your loved ones’ home town. Images of the destruction flash across your television, but phone lines in the town are down and cell phones clog the airwaves, preventing you from reaching your family. You hope they evacuated and pray they survived, but you don’t know where to find them or who to call for help.

The Red Cross toll-free Disaster Information and Resource Center Hotline, 1-866-GET-INFO, provides critical disaster information, including:

Current shelter locations Safety tips and evacuation guidelines Where and how to receive Red Cross assistance Ways to reduce potential damage to your home Information for families seeking loved ones Referrals to emergency and mental health services Tips for talking with children about disasters How you can help with a gift of time, blood or money

For affected residents and concerned families, there is now a source of up-to-date disaster information: the American Red Cross Disaster Information and Resource Hotline, 1-866-GET-INFO.

”Our purpose is to provide an empathetic, compassionate and thoughtful response to the needs of the caller,” said Patricia Froelich, director of the Red Cross disaster call center. ”We call ourselves ‘Anywhere USA’, because it doesn’t matter where we are, as long as we help. Even though we usually aren’t right next door, callers often feel like we are.”

A leader in disaster preparedness and response, the Red Cross originally organized the hotline in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The largest disaster response in the organization’s history, a separate service was soon established to provide long-term assistance. Realizing the success of the hotline, however, the call center was reorganized in June, 2002, to be an information hub for all national disasters.

Nearly 50 temporary and permanent staff operates the call center 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and undergo extensive training in all areas of disaster services, including disaster safety and preparedness, shelter operations, and disaster welfare inquiries (the service that helps people searching for a loved one in the affected region).

”We can provide information about any aspect of disaster preparation and response that the caller might need, which is critical because we get such a vast array of inquiries,” said Froelich. “Callers have questions ranging from ‘I can’t reach my mother in the disaster area - can you tell me if she’s o.k.?’ to ‘Do I take food and water to the shelter with me when I evacuate?’ and ‘There is a tornado warning in my area, what should I do?’”.

At the call center, Red Cross staff field questions ranging from disaster safety tips to shelter locations.

Following a major disaster, such as the recent strike of Hurricane Lili and its predecessor Tropical Storm Isidore, the call center’s staff is expanded to more than 70 volunteers.

”The phones are constantly ringing, but even more so following a large disaster. People want to know what they can do to help, where to donate, or, if they live in the affected region, where they can go to get help and what services the Red Cross is offering,” said Froelich. “We had 4,000 calls regarding the tropical storm and hurricane in Louisiana.”

Despite the large number of inquiries, the call center prides itself on its quick turnaround.

“Usually, we can respond to the callers’ questions right away, particularly questions about safety and preparedness tips,” Froelich said. “Some are more complicated though - like family welfare inquiries. First we have to determine what shelter the affected people registered in, locate them, and then get in touch with them to make sure it is fine to tell the caller if the people are O.K. and where they are. We won’t give callers the information without the affected individual’s expressed approval. Despite all this, though, we usually are able to respond to the caller within 24 hours.”

More than 30 languages are spoken by the call center's staff, making it a vital resource to local chapters in need of translation services.

The prompt, efficient response callers receive is based upon the constant flow of information into the call center from the Red Cross National Headquarters Disaster Operation Center.

“Every day, nearly hourly, we receive updated information on shelter locations and services being provided for each disaster,” Froelich explained. “That fluid, constant motion of information coming in and out of the call center is what makes it such a vital help to people.”

To ensure that not only the wide range of inquiries are covered, but also the array of caller’s ethnicities, up to 30 different languages are spoken by the call center’s staff, including Spanish, French, Russian and Arabic.

“The fact that we have volunteers fluent in so many languages is a huge resource for many disaster operations. If an evacuated family shows up at a shelter, but speaks no English and the shelter has no translation services there, the shelter manager can call the hotline, and we will serve as a translator.”

With the new hotline up and running, Froelich and her staff have big plans for the future. “Everyday we find something new that we want to do, such as facilitating more forms of communication, like chat and web sourcing,” Froelich said. “The staff here is incredible - and I know they’ll be able to accomplish anything they want. It’s our dedication to helping people that makes the call center such a success. Good customer service is our motto.”