Be on the lookout for that display around West Seattle in the months to come. It’s part of the next phase of an effort that really started to rev up last year. If you were a WSB’er last spring/summer, you may recall our coverage of special events introducing neighborhoods to community meeting places (like this one), designated just in case of major disasters — someplace you could go to get connected with information and help, if all the other channels fail. There currently are eight such neighborhood gathering spots around West Seattle which are now dubbed “emergency-communication hubs.”

Saturday morning, many of the volunteers who are working on this got together in Morgan Junction for a discussion including guests from the city and county — and that’s where we all learned about help that’s needed right now for a “corps” that hopefully will never have to spring into action – the Public Health Reserve Corps. Don’t let the name scare you off – they’re looking to sign up volunteers who are NOT health pros, too — read on for more about that, and about the state of disaster readiness in local neighborhoods:

Since it would be all too easy for West Seattle to get cut off from the rest of the city, self-reliance has been a big theme for the volunteer disaster-readiness effort. This isn’t something organized by the city, county, or state – it’s completely grass-roots – the people you see in the photo are some of those who have been meeting in coffee houses and living rooms to keep moving ahead with a plan:

Volunteers in neighborhoods around the peninsula have radios to be put to use when needed, and have done tests in recent months to be sure they’ve found the right spots to be able to relay information, neighborhood to neighborhood – one of those tests was done last Night Out.

Right now, they’re encouraging neighborhoods that aren’t yet participating, to get involved. And even though it’s a grass-roots effort, they’re conferring with government reps to make sure that official information will get around if/when needed as well. At Saturday morning’s meeting, Meredith Li-Vollmer and Jeff Boudreau from the Seattle-King County Public Health Department were on hand, as well as Mark Howard from the City of Seattle Office of Emergency Management.

One of the biggest revelations of the meeting came when Jeff talked about the Public Health Reserve Corps – which has about 170 members now, with 30-plus applications pending, and needs to grow to at least 500 by the end of the year. (Jeff described the Corps as “one body with lots of little arms.”)

Once people sign up to be part of it, they’ll get some online training, including basic first-aid skills – and then they’ll be on a list of those who will be summoned to action if needed. According to a card Jeff passed around, the Reserve Corps’ main jobs include setting up temporary field hospitals, medical shelters, family assistance centers, medication centers; dispensing medications; administering vaccinations; doing health screening; providing community information.

To do this, they need licensed medical volunteers in almost every specialty, physical health and mental health, but they also welcome “non-medical volunteers,” to serve in roles such as call-center volunteers, general/administrative support, hospitality workers, interpreters, logistics workers, spiritual-care workers, people to provide transportation (particularly if you have a 4X4) … and, as the card concludes, “Any adult who wants to help!”

Corps members actually were activated during the December snowstorms, Meredith and Jeff explained, to help provide transportation to people who were in dire need of medical services, such as dialysis appointments, but couldn’t get there on their own.

E-mail phrc@kingcounty.gov to find out how to get on the list — you may never be called into action, but it’s vital peace of mind for so many people to know there will be enough people that CAN be, if the unthinkable happens.

Be aware, there are still some details of disaster readiness to be worked out – some that are beyond the scope of neighborhood volunteers – West Seattle, for example, doesn’t have a hospital, and though there are sites around the city identified as potential temporary hospitals locations, there’s not one in West Seattle yet – though Delridge Community Center has been identified as a potential location for concentrating medical help like basic first aid, and vaccinations (in case the emergency is something like an outbreak of pandemic flu).

Health authorities continue strategizing ways to prevent crises before they happen — Meredith spoke of the painful and deadly lessons learned during the 2006 post-windstorm power outages, when carbon-monoxide poisoning claimed lives, largely in communities where English was not the first language — after the crisis became apparent, information was prepared and distributed in multiple languages, and now that information is circulated before peak season for bad weather hits, but more help is needed to continue spreading the word.

Community-based organizations also are continuing to work up their disaster plans and make sure those are known to authorities and others — one such West Seattle-based organization, Southwest Youth and Family Services, was represented at Saturday morning’s meeting by director Steve Daschle, who noted that organizations like his are likely to be hit with heavy demand, but may not all have universal plans to stay open in disaster, so community members need to know which such organizations they would be able to turn to, and which they would not.

Now, as for what you can do to improve your family-readiness level right now — for starters, you may be wondering – OK, where ARE those six “emergency communication hubs”?

For the Admiral area, Hiawatha Playfield

For Pigeon Point, SW Andover and 20th SW

You can see them all on this map linked from westseattle.bepreparedseattle.info, which Karen Berge and Deb Greer created as part of the volunteer effort – it has a ton more information too. (Also revealed at Saturday morning’s meeting – if and when disaster strikes, the city’s Neighborhood Service Centers also will be used to post and distribute information — in West Seattle, there are two centers, one next to the Delridge Library, and one in The Junction just east of Rocksport on the south side of SW Alaska between 42nd and California.)

Something to be proud of – West Seattle is one of just a handful of Seattle neighborhoods that’s this far along in disaster-readiness planning; Cindi Barker of the Morgan Community Association, who hosted Saturday morning’s meeting, has been leading the charge to rustle up volunteers for the past few years. But we can’t stress enough, it’s truly a volunteer, citizen-led effort, so if you can help in your neighborhood, especially if you don’t see an emergency-communication hub listed for it, please contact Cindi – cbarker@qwest.net – and look for her and others to be getting the word out at upcoming West Seattle events, including the Farmers’ Market on select Sundays and the Gathering of Neighbors/Biz Expo at Chief Sealth High School on Saturday, April 4 (11 am-3 pm, Sealth’s temporary Boren campus). Look for the info-board we showed you at the start of this article!

Other Seattle neighborhoods are starting to get involved too, and a summit of sorts will likely be planned in the not-too-distant future, possibly at the Emergency Operations Center downtown, from which information will flow if and when disaster hits.

Whether you do or don’t choose to check into joining the Public Health Reserve Corps, do take a step toward disaster readiness by checking out the West Seattle Be Prepared website.