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MRC Response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - Interim Report

October 11, 2005

 

In this Report:

• Executive Summary
• Background
• MRC Unit Activities
• MRC Unit Involvement in National Preparedness Month (September 2005)
• MRC National-level Response Activities 
• MRC Program Office Communications
• MRC Program Office Operations
• Initial Lessons Learned and Recommendations

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More than 55,000 individuals from around the country have volunteered to help their fellow Americans as members of the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC). Over the past six weeks, many of these public health and medical professionals, and others without health backgrounds, have provided health care and support services for the victims and evacuees affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. An estimated 6,000 MRC volunteers have supported the response and recovery efforts in their local communities. In the hardest hit areas, and as the storm forced hundreds of thousands of Americans to flee the affected areas, MRC volunteers were ready and able to help when needed and were there to assist as evacuees were welcomed into their communities. These volunteers have spent countless hours helping the many people whose lives were upended by these disastrous events. Since the end of August 2005, MRC volunteers throughout the nation have served their local communities by:

• Establishing medical needs shelters to serve medically fragile and other displaced people
• Staffing and providing medical support in evacuee shelters and clinics
• Filling in locally at hospitals, clinics and health departments for others who were deployed to the disaster-affected regions
• Immunizing responders prior to their deployment to the disaster affected regions
• Staffing a variety of response hotlines created after the hurricanes hit
• Raising funds for those affected by the hurricanes
• Teaching emergency preparedness to community members
• Recruiting more public health and medical professionals who can be credentialed, trained and prepared for future disasters that may affect their hometowns or elsewhere

In addition to this local MRC activity, over 1,500 MRC members have expressed a willingness to deploy outside their local jurisdiction on optional missions to the disaster-affected areas with their state agencies, the American Red Cross (ARC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Of these, almost 200 volunteers from 25 MRC units have been activated by HHS and more than 400 volunteers from over 80 local MRC units have been deployed to support ARC disaster operations in areas along the Gulf coast.

These dedicated and determined volunteers are members of more than 325 Medical Reserve Corps units in 49 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. The following report provides details of the role the MRC program has played in the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

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Last Updated on 9/9/2009