Power an issue for Red Cross shelters

The American Red Cross of Southeast Missouri says its shelters are fully equipped to respond in the event of a disaster in Cape Girardeau County, but backup power and the ability to care for disabled people and pets are still question marks.

The need is highlighted by last month's ice-storms in Southwest Missouri blamed for 21 deaths and power-outages in St. Louis within the last year that left hundreds of thousands in the dark.

The Red Cross has emergency services shelter agreements with 31 buildings in the county. The shelters have a combined capacity of greater than 3,660, and most of the shelters are schools or churches. The Red Cross revises its agreements annually and last did so in August.

Potential shelters are evaluated with preference given to those with both bathrooms and showers, kitchen space and adequate room for sleeping. The Red Cross also prefers that its shelters are handicapped accessible.

But simply having an agreement does not mean a shelter will automatically be used. "If we call them and say the earthquake just hit or there's a tornado, they don't have to let us come in and take over the facility. It's still at their agreement," said Red Cross emergency services director Jamie Koehler.

"Depending on the situation, we may use none of the shelters currently listed. We may find something on the spot that works well and draw up an agreement right there," she said.

Generators

Most of the listed shelters, though, lack backup power.

"I would be very comfortable saying less than half of these shelters have generators," said Cape Girardeau County Emergency Operations Center director Dave Hitt. Cape Girardeau assistant fire chief Mark Hasheider agreed with Hitt's assessment.

The largest potential shelters are among those that do not have generators. Neither the Osage Community Centre, with a capacity of 489, nor the Cape Career and Technology Center, with a capacity of 450, has a backup generator. The Arena Building has limited generator capacity.

"It would just be enough to power a few lights and a couple outlets," said parks and recreation director Dan Muser. "It's very limited. There would be no heat and no air conditioning. It's not big enough to do anything more than that. It would just keep us from being in the dark."

Muser said the reason these large facilities don't have backup power is simple: money. Dependable backup power for the entire Arena Building, he said, would cost between $80,000 and $100,000.

"Backup power is very expensive," Hitt said. "If it wasn't, these folks would have it already."

Hitt said the best way for people to be prepared is to buy their own generator. Generators vary widely in price, but he said a 6.5-kilowatt generator like the one he has in his own home should cost between $650 and $700. It can power essential items like a refrigerator. Generators to provide power to an entire average-sized house cost between $3,000 and $6,000.

Three fire stations have backup power along with the city wastewater and water treatment plants and some lift stations, according to Hasheider.

Disabled

Another gap in coverage is for people who need extra assistance. "What we're all worried about is, in order to be in our shelter we ask that people be able to medicate themselves and be able to get in and out of a cot and basically be able to ambulate," Koehler said. "So anybody who's going to need more care than that and needs assistance, unfortunately, really isn't appropriate for our shelter."

Koehler said because the Red Cross accepts liability for those it shelters it is bound by regulations not to do anything more than administer basic care. That means the Red Cross can hand out aspirin or dress a small wound but cannot do things like hook a patient up to an IV or a respirator.

She said Illinois' state department of health has accepted liability to allow county health clinics to administer more significant care, but that has not happened yet in Missouri. "Spontaneously it'll be done. Nobody is going to turn their back on someone in need. So people will take care of people, but if something happens and if someone, heaven forbid, dies, it will be up for grabs whose fault is that," she said.

Hitt said in upcoming weeks he will organize meetings with area nursing homes and assisted living facilities to ensure they have or are creating a disaster preparedness plan.

Pets

Another concern for the Red Cross is how to handle pets.

In October, President Bush signed into law the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2006. The law requires that emergency preparedness plans "address" household pets.

Red Cross policy has been not to accept pets other than service animals, but the federal law supersedes that policy. Koehler believes the law demands shelters have a plan in place to accommodate pets and said it does not mean pets must be housed inside the shelter.

Marilyn Neville of the advocacy group ACE of Animal Behavior said during the Springfield ice storms pets were turned away from shelters.

"They were simply told they could not enter the shelter. They had to go back home to homes without electricity, and many homes had no heat whatsoever," she said.

According to Loretta Welter, who helped organize the exercise, Cape Girardeau may be in good shape to accept pets in the event of a disaster.

Welter recalls a "mock disaster" exercise run out of the Arena Building a few years ago. Participants were asked to bring dogs, cats and other pets. The owners filled out paperwork, received a Polaroid picture of the pet and a ticket. The pets were then housed in a SEMO District Fairgrounds livestock pavilion.

"It actually worked pretty well," Welter said. "We could've handled a lot more."

Neville, however, believes that setup would be inadequate in an ice event because it does not offer protection from the elements. She also believes it does not fulfill the letter of the federal law.

Koehler does not discount the importance of accommodating pets, even if it's only done to entice owners to leave their homes for the safety of a shelter.

"I'm a two-dog person, and I wouldn't leave my pets," she said.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245