Multi-Township EMS, Red Cross Send Hurricane Relief Volunteers
Posted
Jennifer Peryam-jperyam@timesuniononline.com
Multi-Township EMS has sent two ambulance crews to New Jersey to assist with evacuations for Hurricane Sandy.
There also were 11 Red Cross volunteers from Kosciusko, Elkhart and St. Joe County who left Saturday on pre-deployment to the East Coast.
The Red Cross volunteers will be instrumental in helping open shelters, serve meals and manage operations in areas where residents will evacuate.
Additional volunteers will deploy after the storm hits to manage damage assessment, provide communications and continue to provide shelter operations to all displaced by the storm. Red Cross volunteers are typically deployed anywhere from 10 days to three weeks.
Indiana Department of Homeland Security requested that each of the 10 districts supplies at least five ambulances from each of the 10 Multi-Township districts in the state.
District two includes Kosciusko, Elkhart, St. Joseph, Marshall, Fulton, Stark and Pulaski.
Multi-Township EMS has sent ambulances from Culver 1, Walkerton 1 and South Bend Fire 1.
Warsaw Fire Department also has sent two personnel to assist.
These ambulances join nearly 50 from Indiana.
Their primary function will be to assist local emergency crews in evacuation of nursing homes and hospitals near the coast.
The crews left early Sunday morning and will return on Thursday at the earliest.
This is a first request Multi-Township EMS has had to go out of state for a disaster response, according to Scott Sigerfoos, Multi-Township EMS.
“Multi-Township EMS is more than willing to assist with a national emergency response because if we ever would need help we would want other ambulance services to come and help out in Indiana,” Sigerfoos said.
Sigerfoos said this will not disrupt the service that Multi-Township EMS provides to Kosciusko and Marshall counties.
