UMCOR mobile field unit ready to respond when disasters strike
9/11/1998 NOTE: A photograph is available with this story. By Carolyn Drager* The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has been helping victims of disasters cope with tragedy and rebuild their lives since 1940. Many times, however, its efforts are hampered by the very devastation those victims are fighting.
Now, through a volunteer effort involving the Illinois Great Rivers Conference, UMCOR has a new tool that will make it much easier to assist disaster victims. This month UMCOR is putting into service a mobile field office, outfitted with an array of communications equipment, that
can be sent anywhere in the country in response to a major disaster to serve as a base of operations.
Until now, UMCOR has been at the mercy of whatever conditions exist at a disaster site, said Tom Hazelwood, disaster response network manager for UMCOR. "When there has been a catastrophic event, something like Hurricane Andrew [which hit south Florida in 1992] and we've gone in to help, there's been no place to set up an office, no place for us to
work from," he said.
"This new mobile unit will allow us to go to a disaster site and be self-contained," Hazelwood said. "We won't have to try to find a place to stay, to find a place to set up an office, to find a way to get a phone connected."
Making the mobile unit a reality has taken a lot of hard work and a little bit of fortunate timing. A United Methodist couple donated their 1990 Pace Arrow motor home to UMCOR to help with disaster relief efforts.
The 40-foot motor home was being stored at the UMCOR Sager-Brown Center in Baldwin, La., while officials tried to determine the equipment needed and the costs involved. That's where the Rev. Paul Widicus, a staff member and disaster relief coordinator for the Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference, first saw the motor home. "I went on a Volunteers in Mission work trip to Baldwin after annual conference this year, and hoped to meet some of the people at Sager-Brown I've worked with," Widicus said. "While we were there, they showed me the unit and said they hadn't found anyone to do the work they needed."
His experience with such equipment led Widicus to volunteer to spearhead the effort. He has worked on disaster response teams in Mount Vernon and Jefferson County, Ill., and was involved in assembling a similar unit at the Mount Vernon Fire Department. He also is a ham radio
operator.
"I've always enjoyed doing that kind of thing, and it seemed natural to volunteer to help," Widicus said. "I wrote up a proposal on equipment that should be in the vehicle and submitted it to UMCOR. They said they would buy the equipment if I donated the time."
Widicus and his daughter, Susanna, flew to Louisiana in mid-August, picked up the motor home, and drove it back to his home community of Mount Vernon, Ill. He consulted a variety of people on his plans, including fire department and emergency response personnel, other amateur radio operators, and telephone company employees.
Those consultations resulted in more than just helpful information. "The Hamilton County Telephone Company donated a $450 telephone system that had been in a school, and I had some other people donate equipment as well," Widicus said.
He eventually installed $10,000 worth of communications equipment, including a pair of laptop computers, a printer, fax machine, copier, citizens band radio, weather radio, police/fire scanner, cellular phone, a four-line phone system, and a commercial radio with five handheld units.
He also expanded and upgraded the vehicle's electrical system, adding interior and exterior jacks. The equipment is wired to run on the electrical system, the vehicle's engine if it is running, or an on-board, gas-powered generator.
Widicus also installed cabinets and counters to house the equipment. "There's room for three or four people to work in there at one time," he said. With the outside phone jacks and a retractable canopy on one side, work space can be set up outside the vehicle as well. The back half of the motor home was left intact, providing sleeping and living quarters for two people.
Widicus returned the vehicle to Sager-Brown before the Labor Day weekend.
"This vehicle will be a tremendous asset for us when we respond to severe disasters in the future," Hazelwood said.
# # #
*Drager is assistant editor of The Current, bi-weekly newspaper of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference of the United Methodist Church.
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