About Disaster Solutions

A Volunteer Management Team (VMT)

An experienced, typed, self-supporting, nationally credentialed, and FEMA-reimbursable team of trained emergency personnel can help coordinate volunteers, and reach tens of thousands of disaster survivors at their front doors within days, while seeking out and resolving the unmet special needs of vulnerable populations.

Disaster Solutions can embed a credentialed team to daily rapid train local responders, analyze, customize, and provide both Executive summaries along with pre-sorted and sanitized data management for Situation Unit updates which are concise but thorough, with no extra burden on the local Command. Pathfinders IT section provide Google Earth and ESRI views, with geocoded, time date stamped, Excel sortable data for a unparallel efficiency and management tool in disaster operations – either in or out of network connectivity

An “A” team is available for short term work to rapid train others within a disaster zone. A local emergency manager can task the start up Liaison Package of 1-3 personnel as the first step.

When properly tasked, the Team can do the following with spontaneous volunteers:

• Perform criminal background checks
• Register
• Rapid train
• Issue temporary I.D. badge
• Track their hours (for credit of $18.70 per hour back to local Emergency Management)
• Organize and assign into NIMS compliant teams
• Provide accident insurance
• Supply an initial briefing to the local emergency management (ICS 201)
• Turn in a full Incident Action Plan (IAP) on a daily basis (ICS 202, 203, 204, 205, 215A)
• Produce a realistic After Action Report (AAR)

This VMT manages a Pathfinders Task Force ® (PTF). Pathfinders is a concept FEMA issued a NIMS Alert on, as it considers suggestions to replicate the resource across the nation.

States can request the Pathfinders Task Force through EMAC (Emergency Management Assistance Compact) – More information can be obtained by calling the number below.

Training Packages

Training is available to replicate the Pathfinders Task Force in your own community or state, and training in the use of the PTF Software. The two-day course includes a review of PTF Operations with a full table top exercise explaining the role of the VMT. The course includes the day one training plus a full scale field exercise with an Incident Action Plan and “hands on” use of up to 100 military spec phones. Pathfinders is developing a full course book, and working towards an approval process by the Department of Homeland Security for a pre-approved course, so as to open up grant funding to local communities to achieve the hands on, active training which more than 1,250 volunteers have enjoyed.

The course will meet the requirements for:

• State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSGap)
• Emergency Management Preparedness Assistance Grant Program (EMPA)
• Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program (HSEEP)

PTF Software

While this software is not required for numbers 1 and 2 above, it is the icing on the cake. The software can be downloaded into GPS cell phones, including the Blackberry Curve 8330, to map and track disaster responders, report on survivors needs, and provide tens of thousands of daily “safe and well” reports. On select and affordable phones, this software works in a disconnected environment where cell phone infrastructure has been destroyed. In fact, in Hurricane Ike, PTF’s IT section developed a method to load the entire software onto a laptop computer, which acted as a server. The cell phones then communicated directly with the laptops, without any cell service. The software is called Pathfinders Task Force Software. It combines licenses from 6 companies, including Microsoft Windows, Garmin, ESRI, TeleAtlas, and TeleNav.

“This solution will exponentially improve efficiency, revolutionize State – FEMA documentation, save money, deliver better services to the survivors, and probably save lives…. With a host of responders having limited computer and technological backgrounds, the most important feature of this solution is its simplicity. It works when ‘Failure is not an Option.’”
- Tropical Storm Fay JFO AAR Report

Speaker Options

Scott Lewis, CEM, FPEM, has represented Disaster Solutions as a guest speaker at a wide variety of engagements. In each of his presentations, his lively and interactive sessions engage participants with real-life hurricane experiences. He often uses the PTF phones that he deployed into Ike as part of the talk to give a hands-on feel for how PTF Ike volunteers achieved so much in such a devastated setting. Scott has presented short introductions to the concepts, rapid hands on training snipits, keynote presentations, one to two-hour sessions and two-day tranings. He has conducted talks for:

1. FEMA Headquarters (4 times)
2. U.S. Northern Command
3. American Red Cross Headquarters (3 times)
4. Florida Division of Emergency Management (3 times)
5. California Regional Special Needs Conference
6. Florida Governor’s Hurricane Conference (2 times)
7. Mid-Atlantic National Guard Bureau Hurricane Conference
8. World Disaster Conference
9. Annual Citizen Corps Conference
10. Florida League of Cities Hurricane Preparedness Symposium
11. Missouri Independent Living Summit
12. Arizona Emergency Management Conference
13. CERT Hurricane Conference
14. Forum Club of the Palm Beaches