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Eagles Wings and Pathfinder – Volunteers Ready for Emergencies
September 16, 2011
One of the many organizations that assisted victims and communities in distress following Hurricane Irene in late August was the Eagles Wings Foundation (EWF), a 501(c)(3) Multi-Faith Based Not for Profit Organization based out of West Palm Beach, Florida. Our September eUpdate features EWF’s unique operational concept and technology.
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Karl Pfister of EWF makes a call over the Sabre BGAN |
For up-to-date information and pictures of their deployment to the Bahamas following Hurricane Irene, see Response Summary on the EWF home page. Two teams performed Rapid Damage and SWEAT-MS (sewage, water, electricity, academics, transportation, medical, security) assessments and delivered critical goods to settlements throughout the islands.
EWF has been deployed to disasters ranging from hurricanes Irene, Floyd, Katrina, Ike, and Gustav; the Haitian earthquake; a 189-day deployment to the BP Oil Spill; the Japanese earthquake and tsunami; and the tornadoes and floods in the Southeast United States in 2011. EWF was founded in 1999 during the Bahamian relief effort where it was named Incident Command for the first fourteen days of the response following Hurricane Floyd. EWF is an asset of the State of Florida and is committed to being "6-hours, wheels up" to any disaster it is tasked to respond to. |
Cameron Kirkpatrick of the EWF Pathfinders Task Force collects field data
during
the heavy flooding
along the Mississippi earlier this year.
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The Eagles Wings Foundation's primary objective is to rapidly train and organize spontaneous volunteers and incorporate them into task forces with professional responders, creating a force multiplying effect that exponentially increases the capabilities of each team. Once this has been achieved, these task forces are dispatched into the field to perform operations ranging from rapid damage assessments, unmet needs assessments, safe and well checks, points of distribution staffing, and several other functions.
The principle behind this system of volunteer management is simple: not all impacted survivors are able to make it to a local point of distribution following a catastrophic event, and these survivors have immediate unmet needs such as food, water or medicine which is threatening their life safety. EWF is able to reach these survivors at their door and resolve these unmet needs with the help of spontaneous volunteers.
The Eagles Wings Foundation utilizes software developed through lessons learned from its many past responses. This "Pathfinders Eureka" software allows responders to record field data with automatically time/date stamped and geocoded forms and pictures, thus eliminating the need for paper and pen reporting for field responders. This software is loaded onto military spec. cell phones and operates without the need for cell phone towers or internet, allowing responders to utilize these features in a 100% disconnected environment. Once this data is collected in the field, EWF creates "Executive Summaries" which display form data, pictures from the field, a Google Earth overlay, and an Excel sheet that lists all geocoded data points. EWF also utilizes technology such as the BGAN mobile satellite to allow this information to be rapidly disseminated to the operational managers.
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Scott Lewis (left), Founder of EWF and Pathfinders Task Force Leader, helps train
volunteers
on the software during the New Madrid National Level Exercise in May of 2011.
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Matt Campbell from EWF and the Pathfinders Task force trains a group of responders on “Pathfinder” software
in order to provide Command Staff with Situational Awareness during BP Oil Spill in the Gulf last year. |
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