Rescue and Relief
Written by Peter Buxbaum
The Coast Guard is faced with an everexpanding set of missions. In addition to its traditional domestic search and rescue, drug interdiction and port security missions, it is increasingly called upon to provide disaster relief. One of the first U.S. government agencies to respond to January’s earthquake disaster in Haiti, the Coast Guard was also called upon in April to respond to the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. It has since served an important role in overseeing BP’s efforts to cap the oil well and mitigate the impact of the spill by deploying boom, skimming, applying dispersant and conducting controlled burns to remove oil from the open water.
Besides the untold damage the oil spill is inflicting on the natural environment and wildlife, as well as on the livelihood and beach vacation plans of millions of Americans, the Gulf crisis is also affecting trade and boating with the intermittent closures of ports, channels, and waterways.
Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Ted Kim, from his perch at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, disseminates early warnings gulf-wide via smartphone messages to Coast Guard and private stakeholders. “There have been temporary closures here and there,” said Kim. “There have been no permanent shutdowns of any major gulf port for a prolonged period of time.”
The Coast Guard is using IWSAlerts from AtHoc, a provider of emergency mass notification systems to support its response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The AtHoc emergency mass notification system is capable of reaching 50,000 USCG personnel and maritime industry members with alerts and critical information.
“We are able to notify the community faster and share and process information about the oil spill,” said Kim. “The system’s ability also to collect information from all alert recipients provides us with unprecedented situational awareness based on information received from the entire community. All of this translates into being able to make better decisions more rapidly and communicating them swiftly to all stakeholders.”
EMERGENCY PRODUCTS
Responding to natural and man-made disasters requires the Coast Guard, as well as the other responding government and non-governmental organizations, to be prepared for various contingencies. The gulf spill, while not as yet causing a humanitarian crisis, has required the deployment of temporary housing and work buildings for the myriads of people working on various aspects of the operations. In Haiti, housing for relief workers was required, as was housing and emergency provisions for displaced citizens.
“When it comes to disaster relief, it is like a free-for-all,” said Michael Perl of BP Medical Supplies, a company based in Brooklyn, N.Y. “Everyone is searching for whatever they can.” In order to alleviate this situation, companies like BP Medical take a number of different approaches to the concept of one-stop shopping for emergency products.
“We deal with all kinds of disaster and emergency relief products,” said Perl. “We manufacture first aid and trauma kits that we have been sending down to responders in the gulf. We have also been sending everything from hard hats to booms.” BP Medical has contracts for those items with the states of Louisiana and Texas.
SURVIVAL KITS
A somewhat different approach to onestop shopping comes from Emergenx, a company based in Waterbury, Conn., which concentrates on supplying survival kits to disaster victims. “What we have found is that people responding to disasters send different products like Band-Aids and flashlights individually,” said Michael Jones, a company business manager. “Then they send this down to the disaster area in unmarked boxes and it becomes a logistics nightmare to get all these products to the people who need them.”
In response to this state of affairs, Emergenx provides emergency survival kits with everything required for a particular situation. The kits can be customized as needed for the particular situation being responded to. “Instead of sending random items to a warehouse, where kits have to be made up, these kits include everything a single box,” said Jones. Emergenx was instrumental in the “Survival Kits for Haiti Project,” which distributed emergency relief boxes in Haiti in conjunction with Hope For Haiti, a charitable organization. Some of Emergenx’s kits were also sent to Chile in response to the earthquake in that country earlier this year. The kits were made up in different sizes, to aid between one and 10 people per box, and contained a variety of items such as food and water, flashlights, candles, tools, blankets, ponchos, matches, and first aid and hygiene products.
Emergency Packs, a company based in Carmel, Calif., also provides different kinds of emergency relief packages, including Coast Guard-approved food and water rations for 75 or 100 people as well as 50-gallon wheeled containers with complete survival kits for 75 or 100 people that also include first aid, lighting and electrical supplies, sanitation and comfort products, and search and rescue supplies. The company also sent tents of various sizes and prices to Haiti in the wake of the earthquake, according to company spokesperson Val Parsel.
Emergency Packs markets water filtration bottles and straws that can be used when the water supply has been compromised. Those, too, have been supplied to Haiti. “When an emergency hits, it might be days until you have clean water,” said Parsel. “To sustain life you need clean water.”
TEMPORARY SHELTERS
There are also numerous solutions available for the provision of temporary shelter. Mahaffey Fabric Structures of Memphis, Tenn., provides tents and fabric structures for relief shelters, housing, warehousing and food and continuity operations.
“We have 14 tents near Grand Isle, La.,” said Beth Wilson, the company’s marketing manager. “The tents are set up as housing and food shelters for workers helping with the oil spill. We were first told they would be up for eight months. Recently we heard that we will be adding more tents and that they will be left up for a longer period of time.”
Mahaffey is no stranger to providing relief materials to the Gulf region. The company was contracted by the utility company Entergy to provide temporary structures in Beaumont, Texas, in the wake of Hurricane Rita in 2005. The day after Rita hit land, Mahaffey was on the scene installing structures to house Entergy’s utility line workers and tree trimmers. Within 48 hours, Mahaffey had erected a camp with structures to feed and house 600 disaster relief workers.
Mahaffey has also provided structures to house laundry facilities and command centers in connection with other emergency operations, Wilson said. Fabric structures differ from ordinary tents in that they are made of PVC-coated material and are supported with aluminum box beam framing.
The structures can range from 35 feet to 164 feet wide.
“We warranty the fabric for up to seven years and they can last as long as 12 years,” said Wilson. “Fabric structures are much more durable and reliable than ordinary tents.” The fabric is available in a translucent variety, which lets natural light in and saves on lighting costs.
From the United Kingdom comes an alternative for portable but permanent structures called Concrete Canvas. On the market for year and half, the product includes canvas impregnated with dry concrete and mounted on an inflatable structure. Once the building is inflated, the outer shell is soaked with water, which, after it dries, hardens the concrete and provides a permanent, robust structure.
“The product is filling a niche between soft skin tents and the use of permanent trailers or shipping containers,” said Will Crawford, a company director. “Tents don’t provide much protection and containers are heavy and hard to transport. Our structures are much lighter and don’t take up much space until they are inflated. They use a fraction of the material and have a much lower carbon footprint compared to conventional buildings. They can be collapsed and used elsewhere but they are permanent structures.”
Concrete Canvas structures have been used in Haiti as a medical facility. They have also been used in various locations as headquarters, command control centers and storage facilities. “They may also be used to secure valuable equipment because they are made of concrete and can be outfitted with heavy security doors,” said Crawford. Concrete Canvas can also be used to upgrade new or existing structures. The British Army is using Concrete Cloth to upgrade frontline sandbag defenses in Afghanistan, according to Crawford. The shelters have also been tested by the British, Dutch and Singapore armed forces and have been purchased by the Australian military.
Since the structures are permanent, “they can be turned over to the local population” when disaster relief operations are finished, said Crawford. “They can be reused as part of a reconstruction process as storage facilities, offices or schools.”
BUILT TO LAST
Shelter Systems’ Emergency and Disaster Relief Yurt and Dome Tents are made of a strong, tear-proof, woven film. The products are dome shaped patented Geotensic structures. The tents can be set up by one person in 30 minutes without tools and taken down in five minutes.
“Geotensic structures are stronger than any other structure made of the same materials,” said Eleanor Hamner, a company director. The covering is constructed of a white, woven, multi-laminate, copolymer film which is UV-stabilized and fire-retardant. The frames are constructed of resilient, UV-stabilized PVC tubing. The poles are of high quality PVC while the patented clips used to join the dome cover to the poles are molded of a UV-stabilized resin blended specifically for its high strength and durability.
“Because of their curved shape with no corners, there are no weak points,” said Hamner. “The relief tents are drum tight, completely waterproof and wind-resistant. The covering is UV-stabilized to withstand up to three years of full sun exposure. The white color of the covering reflects the heat of the sun and provides 40 percent shade.”
Shelter Systems’ Emergency Disaster Relief Yurt Dome Tents have the poles on the outside with the covering suspended under the frame. “The frame and the covering are not in direct contact,” said Hamner. “The important benefits from this design are that the covering is under constant, even tension so that the tent will not flap in the wind. The poles cannot rub against the covering. This prevents wind flap shredding and pole friction wearing. Also, since the poles and covering are not touching, there is no temperature buildup to degrade the fabric at contact points.”
Sometimes what is needed at a relief site is ordinary, run-of-the-mill treated lumber. 84 Lumber Company, a construction retailer based in Eighty Four, Pa., has shipped tons of such material to disaster sites in Haiti and Chile. The company has shipped bulk treated lumber to Haiti, which has been used to construct temporary shelters and bath facilities, according to Mark Reginelli, 84 Lumber’s national sales manager. The end users in that case were the U.S. Agency for International Development and several non-governmental organizations.
In the case of Chile, 84 Lumber was asked to assemble kits that could be used to construct permanent housing for the victims of the earthquake that struck that country earlier this year. “We put together packages of pressure-treated lumber, along with floor joists, exterior siding and everything else needed to build a house,” said Reginelli. “We also went down there to help the Chileans build a panel plant so they would have it easier constructing houses in the field.”
84 Lumber’s customers in this case were two large companies that donated housing to victims. “We worked with them to put together packages at very good costs and we donated four of the homes ourselves,” Reginelli added. The company was also recently awarded a contract to supply materials in connection with the Gulf Coast cleanup. “We’re going to be supplying everything from fire extinguishers to Tyvek suits,” he said. “There is a long list of other products that we’ll be supplying for the cleanup of the Gulf Coast area due to the oil spill.” ♦