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Schwarzenegger Starts Nation's First Disaster Corps
June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Governor Schwarzenegger today launched the first-in-the-nation Disaster Corps to professionalize, standardize and coordinate highly trained disaster volunteers statewide. Disaster Corps volunteers will be registered by their local government organization under the Disaster Service Worker Volunteer Program and will meet Disaster Corps training, typing, certification and security screening guidelines.
"California is always leading the way and now we are the first state in the nation to integrate volunteers into our state emergency plan," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "Volunteers are an incredible resource, and no state has more giving, more passionate or more dedicated volunteers than California. Together, we will take volunteerism to a whole new level and make California better prepared and better equipped than ever before, for any emergency."
In the aftermath of the 2007 Southern California Wildfires and Cosco Busan Oil Spill, thousands of disaster volunteers poured into affected areas to assist with evacuations, sheltering, clean-up and a host of other activities supporting response operations. Governor Schwarzenegger recognized the need to more effectively integrate and coordinate disaster volunteer efforts in all phases of emergency management, from disaster preparedness to disaster response and recovery. In February 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Karen Baker to serve as the state's and also the nation's first secretary of Service and Volunteering and charged her office with the development of the Disaster Corps.
"The Disaster Corps program represents an amazing collaboration between state and local government, the nonprofit and private sectors and volunteers themselves," said Secretary Karen Baker. "These volunteers represent a highly-trained resource that will ensure our first responders are supported and our communities are better prepared."
The Disaster Corps initiative was built collaboratively from the ground up through public-private partnerships and with a wide range of subject matter experts including representatives from all levels of government, local emergency managers, state agency volunteer coordinators and leaders in non-governmental volunteer programs.
As a first phase of the program, CaliforniaVolunteers awarded Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and San Francisco counties a total of $1.15 million in federal homeland security funding to support Department of Justice/FBI background checks and First Aid/CPR training for the first 1,000 members and a volunteer coordinator in each of the five counties.
"Government can't do it all by itself," said California Emergency Management Agency Secretary Matthew Bettenhausen. "Being ready for the next disaster, and ensuring an effective response, includes taking advantage of the many contributions and passion of citizens who care deeply about their communities."
In addition to the Disaster Corps, CaliforniaVolunteers today launched the Disaster Volunteer Resource Inventory, a statewide web-based IT tool to coordinate and support public, private and non-profit volunteer programs. CaliforniaVolunteers will provide secure access to the system, free of charge to Disaster Corps programs, non-governmental organizations active in disaster and local and state emergency managers. The Disaster Volunteer Resource Inventory will maintain individual contact information, as well as training history, deployment history and availability, credentialing information, language skills and other pertinent information.
To support the development of the Disaster Corps and Disaster Volunteer Resource Inventory, Deloitte LLP provided $750,000 in pro-bono consulting services, including project management, stakeholder analysis and communications support. The Home Depot Foundation has also committed nearly $60,000 for disaster-related supplies to equip Disaster Corps volunteers.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on
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I don't live in California, but isn't the Governor reinventing the wheel? Doesn't California already have enough disaster resources? Here in Texas we have private, local, state and federal resources and all kinds of plans in place. Any more and we'd have more workers than victims.
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Permalink Reply by Allen Ray Corey j.r. on
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What ever happened to the Red Cross?
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Permalink Reply by Vic Silverfish on
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This is a great idea, but it's hardly the first state-wide organisation. Most states have an unarmed militia (a state run organisation, not a bunch of lunatics in the woods listening to Ted Nugent) that supports the National Guard in times of crises.
For example, in Virginia, we had the Virginia Defense Force - http://www.vdf.virginia.gov/
I look forward to seeing CA implement and utilise this new organisation.
PS - I love that this is implemented, run and (primarily) funded by the state government, and the Secretary of Emergency Preparedness says "Government can't do it by itself." This is a government program mate! This is why we elected you!
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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Why would it be a bad idea?
"Governor Schwarzenegger today launched the first-in-the-nation Disaster Corps to professionalize, standardize and coordinate highly trained disaster volunteers statewide. Disaster Corps volunteers will be registered by their local government organization under the Disaster Service Worker Volunteer Program and will meet Disaster Corps training, typing, certification and security screening guidelines."
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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Lutan - similarity to the SES in this move? Sounds like it to me, but I've only ever worked with the SES, never been a member.
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Excellent point. Let me do the math...more resources for no more money. Okay! I'll take it. But they have to promise to only serve donuts and tuck sheltered people into bed... LOL
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The statement referenced "...highly trained disaster volunteers..." (which sounds like it should be firefighters). As for regular ones, I guess Red Cross, CERT, Boy Scouts, Church groups, etc.
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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volunteers poured into affected areas to assist with evacuations, sheltering, clean-up and a host of other activities supporting response operations. Governor Schwarzenegger recognized the need to more effectively integrate and coordinate disaster volunteer ef
Over here though, the SES isa response and recovery agency. They are at the front of response operations in their fields.
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Permalink Reply by Nicholas Relich on
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So what dose this mean for us on the CERT Team
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Ba-zing!
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The SES is spectacular at managing regional disasters. I've gone out on a couple of regional (storm damage) events with them, and I can't think of a similar, state-wide entity from back in the US.
FWIW - the SES has very few members. When they need a lot of bodies, they call the Rural Fire Service. The RFS can turn out literally a thousand trained personnel in less than 3 hours to anywhere in the Sydney basin, slightly longer to anywhere more remote. I don't think anyone outside of the military has that kind of capability.
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