ECRV4711 Goes to Kentucky

Early Saturday morning I got the call that they were deploying the Red Cross Emergency Communications Response Vehicle (ECRV) 4711 to assist in the relief efforts for the major tornado outbreak that occurred through southern Indiana and Kentucky. Since I was the "on-call" operator I was on the road to Chicago at 9:30am. By 1:00pm we had the ECRV rolling to Lexington and we arrived late that evening. The next morning we drove to one of the hardest hit communities in Kentucky, West Liberty, and set up the ECRV to provide communications to the Command Center and shelter at Morgan County Elementary School. The following are just a few photos. I'll post more later.

Monday morning we woke up to find a “fresh”
dusting of snow over everything

The snow certainly made a pretty drive to the shelter
but added insult to injury to the victims of the tornado.

Just a sample of the destruction in West Liberty.
It was the worst I've seen and looked like the tornado
was 100+ yards wide as it moved right over the
center of the town.

My co-driver Jill Rowan.
She is seated on one of the 'small' chairs at one of the 'small'
tables at the Command Center. We used the Head Start room
because it allowed easy access to the ECRV to run a
Wireless Access Point (WAP) into the office.

Today we moved the shelter to the Assembly of Faith Church,
just north of West Liberty.

We also have a new Command Center in a Mobile
Operations Center provided to the effort by the

R. J. Corman Railroad Group - the big red RV.

The ECRV is providing connectivity to the

Red Cross network for the staff inside the

Command Center - I now have "vehicle envy"!!