Everything we do here today is a giant step in the right direction.
So thanks for being here.
I really appreciate it.
- Are you all familiar with hubs?
Not really.
Okay. Super.
Most people don't know what they are.
- Well, basically what the hub to do is connect needs and resources
in the event of a disaster.
- The hub is designed to have a place where neighbors can go
and say they need help, or they have resources that can help.
We’re all volunteers.
We stand up in an emergency, we support our neighbors.
- Today this is a hub exercise.
assume there's a large disaster of some type
and see what we can do to help neighbors who come up and see
where breakdowns are and where we can do better,
for ... in terms of helping people and finding resources.
neighborhoods are connecting in a way that they don't normally.
And if you do that ahead of time, then it goes much more smoothly.
- It's really important to think about your personal preparedness,
and this right here, the hubs are about community preparedness.
- That’s the P.I.O. area,
once they have said, this is what we do.
If they're willing to be an actor, they go over here to Nancy.
She is our actor wrangler.
- Okay, well, now you're a diabetic.
- Oh, cool.
- In an exercise, you have, scripts.
- I found this person walking in the neighborhood
they're confused. They can't tell me where they live.
What do I do?
- Which one of us wants to be the ... ? (chuckles)
I don't mind being confused.
- Okay. Okay.
- The first station is greeter.
- Yeah, I’m going to run out of my insulin, tomorrow.
- Okay.
- And then we have an information station,
where we can help direct people.
- Now, there's multiple vehicles involved.
- We have message takers.
Who can tell people what other stations to go to.
There's a resource station
- This is what I have.
- Leftover insulin, two vials of regular insulin.
- If you need something like water,
They'll put a tag on the board that says need water.
Put your address there.
well, right now, since we have our medical tent open,
she's going to
record all the medications.
- We also have medical.
we have actual registered nurses.
- I'm diabetic.
- Okay.
- I need insulin.
Regular insulin. - Okay.
- And I'm going to run out tomorrow.
- Okay. It's kind of urgent. - Yes. It is.
- Won't be in every location, but in this case.
- Holy moly. Look at that. It's a match.
- because there's going to be first aid issues and greater needs than that.
That at least we can treat.
And we have an education station to tell people how to treat water.
or how do you protect yourself from downed power lines, things like that.
We also have a volunteer station. People come,
maybe they're not injured,
their house is okay, but they want to help their neighbors.
The volunteer station.
- (radio call) Hello Rick, will you be ready for the, next test ...
- We even have a radio station,
but we're again, we're assuming the cell phones won't work.
So we need a radio system.
N6NBN, testing
(radio beeps and sounds)
The fact that we've got instantaneous
communications with the city operations center with no
heavy equipment or anything.
we can offer, comfort to people.
We can get messages to their out of area relatives.
We can send email by radio.
- It's just a means of doing something when when the infrastructure
is destroyed.
-The hub thing, is an amazing thing.
This was all grassroots.
The city got behind it a few years ago, but
this, the neighborhoods came up with this whole concept. It’s beautiful.