A brief explanation of how things work in an actual disaster:
1. Weather Forecast - usually start 7-10 days ahead.
2. About 7 days out CCDART sends an informational email to its team asking folks to start watching the weather and warning of a potential deployment.
3. About 72 hours in advance of the event, the REPC begins holding phone conferences with all of its representatives and all the volunteer groups send out their own deployment calls to get a head count on available volunteers.
4. About 36 hours in advance, a decision is made by the Executive Board of the REPC to move ahead with sheltering or not.
5. At this point the volunteer organizations move ahead with volunteer assignments.
6. Once the decision is made to establish shelters there is usually a 3- to 6-hour window of setup time for the volunteer organizations to get in place and set up as needed.
7. Hurry up and wait for the storm to hit.
WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR RESPONDERS KIT
For more information on responding visit:
American Humane Society - Rescue Diary
The Humane Society of the United States - Responding
Code 3 Associates - Disaster Response
Noah's Wish - Saving Animals in Disasters