SkiP HappEns Podcast
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SkiP HappEns Podcast
Heroes of the Red Cross: Disaster Relief, Preparedness, and the Unwavering Spirit of Volunteers
Welcome to the Inner Harbor cast. This is the podcast where we explore the inspiring stories of impactful work happening right here in our community. Today, we're honored to have a very special guest. She is the I know I'm gonna mess this up the Executive Director of the Red Cross, but I know there's a lot more to that title. All right, lisa Smith is with us this morning. From providing critical disaster relief to offering life-saving services, the Red Cross plays an essential role right here in central New York, all over the country, as a matter of fact, in our society, and in this episode, we'll hear firsthand about the organization's mission, challenges and the incredible ways of making a difference every day. So I want you to sit back, relax 20, 30 minutes and let's dive into a conversation that sheds the light of humanitarian efforts in the incredible work of the red cross. Uh, lisa, I do. First of all, good morning and welcome good morning.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, I think I have that morning voice going today me too, so we're a great pair right.
Speaker 1:It works out well. They're gonna. Their voices are awesome. They're not always like that, but um, first of all, what is your exact title?
Speaker 2:you are the executive I am the executive director, central and northern new york.
Speaker 1:Wow, you cover a whole lot of territory, absolutely yeah the most beautiful part of new york, yeah, you know, and right off the top, um, maybe if somebody's watching this a few days down the road, but just recently, though, there's a major fire in Messina, new York. That would be your territory right, that is yes.
Speaker 2:Where six?
Speaker 1:individuals lost their lives. How does the Red Cross step up to help them in this situation?
Speaker 2:Sure. So you know this chapter and chapters across the whole country respond to two to three disasters a day and most of them for us are home fires. So we work very closely with emergency management and all of the counties that we cover and we're actually asked to respond. So we are invited in if you will. So for instance, in Messina, as well as Baldensville, the big fire in Baldensville we're still working with the families there.
Speaker 2:That just happened this weekend. So we go in, we bring our volunteer disaster responders, come in immediately, take the victims of the fire away from the area, working with the fire department to really allow the fire personnel, the responders, to do their jobs. So we work, you know. We take the victims, we make sure that they have a safe place to stay that evening, we make sure they have things on their feet, shoes on their feet. The children have, you know, some comfort care, that kind of thing, and then eventually we will case manage them. There's financial aid. We will make sure they have food, we'll replace their medicine, we offer mental and spiritual care, all those types of things. But when you look specifically at I'm going to use Baldensville because it just happened- this weekend.
Speaker 2:We're here. It was a huge fire. We had about five responders that went at night to help the people there. There were about 20 families that were affected. We opened a shelter at OCC, which is one of our big partners in this county, and to have a place that people could go immediately, and some of those families literally they grabbed their little children and headed out the door with nothing else nothing. They were barefoot.
Speaker 1:They're in toiletries no clothes, no nothing.
Speaker 2:They didn't have their car keys. They didn't have their credit cards. The children literally were just in pajamas. They didn't have their credit cards. The children literally were just in pajamas. They didn't have diapers, they had nothing.
Speaker 2:So you know, we make sure they get to the shelter, we take care of it, we feed them, give at least mom and dad slippers for their feet, blankets, wrap the kids up so they can go to sleep. And then in the morning I got there about six or seven, took a list from the people that were there of those specific needs that they needed right away and I went out again working with another one of our partners, which is Walmart, and purchased shoes and underwear and diapers and all that type of thing just to get people settled. And then we work with community partners. So in this case, the community of Baldwinsville, I'm sorry, really stepped up, as so many communities do. We started getting calls because the Red Cross won't take donations. You know that's not what we do. You know we don't have the manpower to manage that because, as you can imagine, a community that's generous, you know the school district collected things.
Speaker 2:And within 15 minutes they were completely overwhelmed.
Speaker 2:100,000 items Absolutely, which is fantastic, but think about how to manage that. So you really need people in the community to step up. And I've got a bunch of calls and then we started coordinating with the volunteer center, the Baltimore Volunteer Center, who is now managing all of that and will manage donations and that kind of thing. So what we do is that first response we help with recovery and then we work with the community to get people back on their feet. So we're not meant to be there forever, but we are meant to be there initially to make sure people are safe and taken care of.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you how does it get to that point, though? Who calls the Red Cross, is it the 911 center? Reaches out when they know they have a disaster. Well, you know, we have a process but each county is a little different.
Speaker 2:Okay, but we definitely. We either hear from the fire chief, the fire marshal, emergency management is normally what happens. So they call us because often we won't respond. If it's a building fire and there's no people involved, you know we usually just focus on home fires involved. You know, we usually just focus on home fires. However, if we're called because it's a large fire to take care of the responders which we will do as well we'll set up canteening and have water and gatorade and wet towels for smoke, you know to yes, no, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was the fireman for 20 years, so oh, yeah, a little bit to what you're saying, but it's our viewers and our listeners need to understand. You know the workings of the Red Cross and what's going on here. What is the most challenging part of responding to these types of emergencies?
Speaker 2:Well, our workforce is 90% volunteers, because we could not do what we do without volunteers. So our paid staff is a very small component of our workforce. So keeping volunteers, you know, trained and at the ready is a lot of work and we need a lot of people. So our biggest issue is, especially as people age, our people tend to stay with us forever and then they get to a period of time, like you and I, you know, we get to that period of time where you start settling back a little bit. You know we need to keep replacing people.
Speaker 2:So what I can, what I always say is, you know, we, we need more people so that we can respond correctly and appropriately and quickly. You know we're able to do that right now, but you know we have to build capacity. But more importantly, I think our biggest challenge so you know we're really great at responding to fires here because we do so many you know the city of Syracuse is the highest risk in our whole region and, of course, the people that are affected the most are the people that have the least to lose, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, exactly Always. Yeah, you mentioned the city of Syracuse. I just know in the news just recently there were like four structure fires. You know. People were left without homes and they've lost all their belongings and the Red Cross had to step up. Like I said, we wanted to step up to help them.
Speaker 2:But we do this, like I said, two to three times a day. So it's just amazing. You know, every six minutes someone needs the services of the Red Cross. But what's also happening when you look across the country, you know. We respond everywhere. You know it's not just right here, obviously, and we also work internationally. We have other divisions in other countries. But when you look across the country, everything that's happening with climate change is you know we are. We're out working in the wildfire, wildfires in California yeah.
Speaker 2:So we have our people usually deploy out for two to three weeks. So our first wave is coming back, but we had about we had 12 people from this chapter that went out and then 25 in our region that gave up their time, their lives, to go out and help other people. But just look what happened in the fall. You know, we had Helene Milton Back to back. Yeah, and I deployed for Helene. I was part of the early response team that was in Asheville. Well, so Helene was supposed to hit in Tallahassee.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that was down along the Gulf Coast.
Speaker 2:Right. So we started deploying people out to be prepared to open shelters and that type of thing. So I was out there for three weeks. We got through Helene doing good work, a lot of people affected, and then Milton hit a week later and this was literally our biggest response, our most effective, our biggest disaster we've ever had, because it affected all of Florida.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Milton was just so you've already had Helene. Milton came through thankfully did not hit Tampa as they thought it would, because the loss of life would have been tremendous, so it went a little south. But then 25 tornadoes came as well, all at the same time, so you already had this whole infrastructure helping people. We ended up with 85,000 people in shelters when Milton hit in the state of Florida. Now that doesn't even count what's going on in Georgia and South Carolina and Tennessee and North Carolina. North Carolina was hit so badly they had over 200 people lost their lives. It was a mass casualty event, all from Helene. It was just insane.
Speaker 2:I went to Asheville in North Carolina two months after the storm had hit just to help. I usually work in government services and working with the local governments and I went out and looked and whole communities were just gone. Mountainsides were, you know the mud that just broke off of mountains and wiped out. Communities were crazy. We couldn't even drink the water yet, and this was two months after it happened. So you know the Red Cross is going to be there working with these people for a long time. But so so everybody sees these things on the news, but look at what's happening right here. You know, mother nature is knocking on our door and she is angry.
Speaker 1:Somebody upset her.
Speaker 2:So we are not immune anymore. You know, we have spent many, many, many years really kind of skating by, and this chapter in particular is such a great feed to send our volunteers out, because, you know, the worst we can ever say is we get a lot of snow, you know, and we don't even notice that anymore.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't even snow as much as it used to Not as it used to but I have to say, just what has happened recently is like the way it used to be years ago. When I was growing up, there used to be the snow banks. You know, end of November there were snow banks alongside the road. You know, we haven't seen that in a long time. And here we are.
Speaker 2:But look what's happened. Just since May I think, we had a tornado in Lewis County, followed by a flood, and then, within two weeks, we had a tornado hit Canastota which wiped out a whole city block and a gentleman lost his life in that disaster. And hours later, a tornado came through and wiped out downtown Rome, which was the most devastating thing that the city of Rome has ever had happen ever. And that's right here. That's here in our backyard. So you know, we need to be prepared. A lot of what the Red Cross does is preparedness training as well. So we do respond to disasters, but we try to make sure that people are prepared for a disaster. So one of the biggest pieces that we do is our smoke alarm installation.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you about it. It's on my list of questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I can just keep talking.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll just sit down and smile, but you're reading my mind and very good, All right.
Speaker 1:smoke detectors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's so important and often when we, you know, when we talk to the fire department, especially on a big response, especially if there's loss of life, you know, we always ask you know, did you hear anything? And often they hear no alarms at all, which indicates that there probably wasn't a working smoke alarm in the home.
Speaker 1:You know I will say this. Going back to the fire at Legacy Apartments in Baldwinsville, there was a video on Facebook a day after and you could hear a smoke alarm beeping. It was still beeping and that was such an eerie feeling seeing that and hearing it. You know watching the video and you just hear beep, beep, beep.
Speaker 2:Right, which means that the place is still hot, yeah yeah, so not safe to be there taking pictures, for sure.
Speaker 1:Hopefully they kept their distance. Yeah, exactly, but it is you know not to make light of it, but you know smoke alarms is your best protection against loss of life.
Speaker 2:It's not going to stop a fire from happening, but it's going to let you know. So if you think about when fires happen, the most it's in the middle of the night, when everybody's sleeping. So how are you going to know If you don't have an alarm going off to wake you up? How are you going to know your place is on fire? Whether it's an apartment, a house, doesn't make any difference. So what the Red Cross does is we will install 10-year smoke alarms free of charge. Our volunteers go in. All you have to do is ask and then we assess the situation. We put one in each bedroom, we put one on each floor, we install them. Then we do a homes made safer training, which really helps people think what happens if there is a fire. You know how do we escape. If there's children, we do a little exercise with them so they understand what the sound is.
Speaker 2:Talk about escape routes. You know nobody should wait for each other. You know you should get out and have a place to meet outside. And we've talked to people afterwards afterwards, because we always go back after fire, especially if we know we keep records. Did we install smoke alarms so we go back to them to make sure the smoke alarm worked and everything. And the stories we get you know one in particular that happened in Syracuse last year. The family said you know, we knew there was a fire. You know the alarm went off, it was during the day. But what we didn't? The exit that we would normally take was trapped and it was blocked and we were so nervous, and so you know you get so caught up in it. But they remembered their alternate escape route that we went through with them and that's how they got out of the place.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, though, because usually, when somebody is, for the most part, somebody gets excited, or they get nervous, or whatever all of a sudden, all those thoughts go out of your mind. Correct? If something like that all right, this is wrong, this is blocked. I can't go this way. Oh my God. Now what do we do? Right? So yeah, it's something.
Speaker 2:So our goal is to have working smoke alarms in every single home, everywhere, but that's a challenge as well, because you have to ask us for them.
Speaker 1:We don't know you need them. Is it open to everybody in this region? It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter. There's no financial test at all.
Speaker 1:If you ask us, we will come in and do it, because we do hear way too often after a fire that the smoke detectors weren't working or there were no batteries in the smoke detectors or you know anything along those lines that you know what they could have died. You know, and hopefully everybody gets out, but still you need to follow up on that and it doesn't matter who you are, what your income level is, whatever that they can call the Red Cross and say I need smoke detectors.
Speaker 2:Right, and we'll send a group out to install them and we go through your house and help you. You know, if you're overburdening your outlets or you know whatever, we'll talk to you about that as well. And you work with the fire department with that as well, because they have people that go around and inspect and make sure that you're not overloading the. I would say we have so many partners out there.
Speaker 2:We can do what we do without them, but the fire departments truly are our heroes and we work really closely with the fire departments and we're here to support them as well, you know, I want to back up a little bit.
Speaker 1:You, you talk about volunteers, but how does one become a volunteer? Plus, what training do they need? Or does the red cross train them? Can we talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2:wait. I always say we are the closest thing to the military, we're the non-military military. Uh, so, yes, we have a lot of training. Um, even for me that a lot of the things that I do when I deploy, I do here as my regular job, but I have gone through hours and hours and hours of training. It's really incredible. So, to volunteer, you know, basically it's just going onto our website and filling out a form to volunteer and then you're called by someone from volunteer services and they kind of triage what your interests are, what your skill sets are, you know what you are thinking of doing, and then they will send you to whichever department that makes sense, because, of course, we have so much volunteer opportunity. It's not just responding to disasters.
Speaker 1:You can never have enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, you know, we have needs in volunteer services, just data entry, you know everything we do, there's always something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything we do. There's a volunteer behind Nice, you know that role, so and then they just go through, they meet with whomever in that line of service that they're interested in and then find out what it would take to, you know, become a to do that job. And we do a background check and you know everybody that's part of the Red Cross goes through a background check and then they do the training that they need. Some of the training we've done some bootcamp training, if you will, because the need was so great during Helene that we had to find new people to go out. You know we couldn't keep up. You know we had over a thousand people down there that change every two weeks, you know. So it we needed new people. So we were able to train people very quickly and get them out the door and send them down there. But even that training them very quickly took a few weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the age requirement. I'm thinking like, okay, like a buddy of mine just retired, he's looking for something to do, right, he's enjoying life, but he wants a little something to do, sure. So I think there'd be a great opportunity, yeah.
Speaker 2:There's no age requirement at all and again it depends on the type of role. A lot of retirees, of course, are responding to what we call DAT calls, to the fire calls, but there also is a huge need for volunteers to pick up blood and transport it. So that's a big piece to pick up blood and transport it. So that's a big piece, and there are a lot of retired volunteers that just love to do that. You know they want. They pick up the blood from either the donation center or a mobile center and then transport it to Rochester.
Speaker 2:For you know, for processing or take it directly to the hospital that it's supposed to go to, and there's nothing better than pulling up in a Red Cross vehicle and walking through a hospital with that case that says blood. You know, I mean it's a great feeling.
Speaker 1:I bet it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's that as well. You know, there's so many different things.
Speaker 1:You know, before we let you go today, I have to ask you give so much to the community. Food, clothing, housing, it all comes at a price. So how does? Is it all donations from you know, the public, or how does that work? So we are.
Speaker 2:we are funded by the generosity of our donors. So you know, the big piece is, of course, our workforce is mainly volunteers. The public funds us to do the things we do and that's how people can help us. They can volunteer or they can send a donation. Both is needed and both are expected. And I don't want to walk away without saying you know, we talked about blood very quickly.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But you know, every two seconds. Someone needs blood Every two seconds and blood only lasts so long, you know. So we have to constantly refresh the supply here. We manage 90% of all the blood in this community, so we need to make sure we have enough to meet the need.
Speaker 1:And the blood drives. They're located right on the website, correct?
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:So you can pick and choose where you want to go. Absolutely, it's very simple, it's very important.
Speaker 2:And one. You can give one donation.
Speaker 1:We'll save three lives, so no reason not to do it. That's amazing, yeah, and they don't even prick your finger anymore.
Speaker 2:Oh, I remember amazing, yeah, and they don't even prick your finger anymore.
Speaker 1:You know they do something else. Yeah, they don't even do that anymore. No, you just walk in and answer a few questions and you're off to get blood and you get snacks, you know. Lisa Smith, the executive director Central New York region.
Speaker 2:Central and Northern New York. Bam yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 1:Steve was, like, you know, our producer over there. He sent me an email. He's like. Her official title is this and it's a lot longer than what I gave you before. But no, you have a lot of responsibility and you're doing a hell of a job. I mean just everything that you're doing and touching the community, especially right here locally, with everything that has happened recently. And you know we don't know what the future is going to bring, but we need the Red Cross. You know we don't know what the future is going to bring, but we need the Red Cross and we need the generosity of our donors to keep the Red Cross as strong as it is right now, if not stronger.
Speaker 2:Thank you for helping us get the word out. We appreciate it. No, absolutely. We couldn't do that without you.
Speaker 1:I had my list of questions, but I didn't need it. But thank you so much for coming by. It's been the Inner Harbor cast and this is something we do all the time and if you like what you're seeing in my discussion with Lisa Smith, just subscribe to the Inner Harbor cast because we have a lot of organizations, for example the Red Cross. They come in and chat with us. So it's just we're in touch with the community. We are hometown, we are born and raised right here in Syracuse, just like you. So that's pretty cool, lisa. Thank you so much for joining.
