So, we're being sent home tomorrow. The Disaster Response Team and other national 2-1-1 volunteers were called here to help set up the call center and get them ready to field the calls themselves... and we've done that in record time... a matter of days! When we got here on Friday, they had volunteers crammed together in a room of long tables, keeping notes on paper... and already they've upgraded to a much larger room with computers for each volunteer- about 40 or so! I'm so impressed at how quickly and efficiently everything was done here. And there was a lot to do- train the volunteers, train the volunteer trainers (for after we've left), get the system set up, make sure they can maintain it after we've left, provide some respite for the overworked general 2-1-1 staff (who had been working 12 hour shifts at least for over a week!), get the crashed database system (which was completely lost when the disaster calls first started coming in!) back up and running, etc. And with our team of 18 people that were flown in from around the country, all the 2-1-1 staff that were already here in San Diego, and all of the incredible volunteers, who all did fantastic work, everything that needed to be done was done so well and very quickly. I'm so excited to be a part of this team of such fantastic people, and I'm so glad that there was a way I could help out! While I'll be glad to get home, I must admit, I'm a little sad that we were able to do everything so quickly, because I'm going to miss working with everyone I've met out here. This really has been a great experience... we've learned so much and made new friends... we'll remember this experience for a long, long time.
We plan to post some of our pictures from this trip on Tuesday or Wednesday... whenever we get a chance to upload them... so check back later this week to put faces to the people we've been talking about!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Sunday morning
Day 3 in San Diego.........
Good morning everyone! Theresa and I slept really well yesterday after a long 12 hour shift. We are now at the 2-1-1 San Diego call center ready to take calls, and before we started on the phones, we were notified that we can leave early.
We've done our job and we did it well. The 2-1-1 San Diego staff is grateful to have us here in a time of need, to provide them with respite support for there 2-1-1 I&R staff. The 2-1-1 San Diego staff have been so great to us since we arrived, and we can't forget the fact that they feed us well here.
We made our airlines changes and will be leaving tomorrow morning. Until then we will be here in the call center taking 2-1-1 I&R calls for the day. See ya'll back in Minnesota.
~Chee
Good morning everyone! Theresa and I slept really well yesterday after a long 12 hour shift. We are now at the 2-1-1 San Diego call center ready to take calls, and before we started on the phones, we were notified that we can leave early.
We've done our job and we did it well. The 2-1-1 San Diego staff is grateful to have us here in a time of need, to provide them with respite support for there 2-1-1 I&R staff. The 2-1-1 San Diego staff have been so great to us since we arrived, and we can't forget the fact that they feed us well here.
We made our airlines changes and will be leaving tomorrow morning. Until then we will be here in the call center taking 2-1-1 I&R calls for the day. See ya'll back in Minnesota.
~Chee
Saturday, October 27, 2007
It's about 6...
And we've been here for 10 hours already... only 2 to go! We're on 12 hour shifts- 8am to 8pm- and (at least today) the time seems to be flying by. So far today's been kind of slow in the general 2-1-1 call center- which I should have expected, considering it's a Saturday- but the disaster call center has still been pretty busy... information changes so quickly that people have to keep calling back to get the most up-to-date information. I'm really impressed at how efficient they've been in conveying all the new information to everyone... it can't be easy.
And places in the community have been so great and supportive of us... I think every meal has been donated and catered by a different establishment... or close to, anyway. They've been keeping us well fed so we have the energy to sit at the phone for 12 hours straight. Thank you so much for everything!!!
Hopefully I'll find a way to upload pictures at some point... we've got some good ones... but I'm not making any promises, as they're keeping us pretty busy here.
Cheers,
~Theresa
And places in the community have been so great and supportive of us... I think every meal has been donated and catered by a different establishment... or close to, anyway. They've been keeping us well fed so we have the energy to sit at the phone for 12 hours straight. Thank you so much for everything!!!
Hopefully I'll find a way to upload pictures at some point... we've got some good ones... but I'm not making any promises, as they're keeping us pretty busy here.
Cheers,
~Theresa
Our first day in San Diego
Hello everyone!
We made it safely to San Diego, with only a couple mishaps (as in my luggage missing the connecting flight in Pheonix... it showed up at the hotel about 8 hours later), but we're here and learning the ropes. After we checked into the hotel, we were brought down to the call center to get trained in to take the disaster calls. They have two separate call centers, one for the fire disaster information, and one for the general 2-1-1 information calls. We were on the disaster line for about an hour or two last night, and the majority of calls were from people checking on which areas were under evacuation orders, which areas had the evacuation orders lifted, road closure information, and water status (some areas have to boil their water (most everyone)- and some areas have been told not to use thier water at all, so they have to go somewhere and pick up bottled water to use).
They have a TON of excellent volunteers in the disaster line area, and since Chee and I are both trained and certified in general Information and Referral (what we do at United Way 2-1-1), and we're both bilingual (me in Spanish and Chee in Hmong), they decided to train us on their 2-1-1 system so we can provide some much needed respite to thier call center staff. Their call center has been FLOODED with calls... they normally take about 125,000 calls a year... and they've surpassed that in just this week! Most of the volunteers are from the area, whose crash-course, whirlwind training only covered how to answer disaster calls. So yesterday, Chee and I got our crash course on how to use thier system, and this morning, they put us on the phones. So far, the majority of calls have been disaster calls that were routed incorrectly, so we've been sending them over to the disaster lines. The other calls I've answered were people looking for shelter, and unfortunately, all of the shelters are completely full, so the best we can do is tell them to try calling us tomorrow morning to check and see if anything's opened up by then.
It's sort of surreal... it's so beautiful where we are- a smoky haze is really the only evidence I've seen first hand of the fires. It's been interesting talking with some of the volunteers who are from the area... most of them either know someone who has been evacuated, or have had to evacuate themselves... one person I spoke with had about 10 minute's notice in the middle of the night to get himself and his family and whatever they could grab out of their house. So scary. It's good that we're here, though... most everyone seems really glad that 2-1-1 is available to get the information they need... with out us here, they wouldn't know who to call or where to go to get accurate, up-to-date information that is accessible just by dialing an easy, 3-digit number.
~Theresa
We made it safely to San Diego, with only a couple mishaps (as in my luggage missing the connecting flight in Pheonix... it showed up at the hotel about 8 hours later), but we're here and learning the ropes. After we checked into the hotel, we were brought down to the call center to get trained in to take the disaster calls. They have two separate call centers, one for the fire disaster information, and one for the general 2-1-1 information calls. We were on the disaster line for about an hour or two last night, and the majority of calls were from people checking on which areas were under evacuation orders, which areas had the evacuation orders lifted, road closure information, and water status (some areas have to boil their water (most everyone)- and some areas have been told not to use thier water at all, so they have to go somewhere and pick up bottled water to use).
They have a TON of excellent volunteers in the disaster line area, and since Chee and I are both trained and certified in general Information and Referral (what we do at United Way 2-1-1), and we're both bilingual (me in Spanish and Chee in Hmong), they decided to train us on their 2-1-1 system so we can provide some much needed respite to thier call center staff. Their call center has been FLOODED with calls... they normally take about 125,000 calls a year... and they've surpassed that in just this week! Most of the volunteers are from the area, whose crash-course, whirlwind training only covered how to answer disaster calls. So yesterday, Chee and I got our crash course on how to use thier system, and this morning, they put us on the phones. So far, the majority of calls have been disaster calls that were routed incorrectly, so we've been sending them over to the disaster lines. The other calls I've answered were people looking for shelter, and unfortunately, all of the shelters are completely full, so the best we can do is tell them to try calling us tomorrow morning to check and see if anything's opened up by then.
It's sort of surreal... it's so beautiful where we are- a smoky haze is really the only evidence I've seen first hand of the fires. It's been interesting talking with some of the volunteers who are from the area... most of them either know someone who has been evacuated, or have had to evacuate themselves... one person I spoke with had about 10 minute's notice in the middle of the night to get himself and his family and whatever they could grab out of their house. So scary. It's good that we're here, though... most everyone seems really glad that 2-1-1 is available to get the information they need... with out us here, they wouldn't know who to call or where to go to get accurate, up-to-date information that is accessible just by dialing an easy, 3-digit number.
~Theresa
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