GUARD TO LOOK for hazards; VA volunteers man phones.
Guard to look for hazards; VA volunteers man phones
Arkansans on Sunday had begun mobilizing to assist southeast Texas after a hurricane-turned-tropical storm pummeled the coast with high winds and torrential rains.
The Arkansas National Guard readied a survey team consisting of 5 to 10 guardsmen from the 61st Civil Support Team to travel to a Dallas staging area today. From there, the team will likely head south to one of the devastated regions, Guard spokesman Maj. Will Phillips said on Sunday.
Rogers-based disaster response nonprofit Sheep Dog Impact Assistance plans to send six of its teams from across the region to south Texas over the coming weeks.
A computer lab on the seventh floor of the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital in Little Rock has been transformed into a call center to begin taking calls for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Houston. The call center there closed over the weekend because of the storm.
On Sunday, calls to the volunteer crew of nurses and hospital support staff came in waves.
“They can be something as simple as a medication refill to a real emergency,” said call center supervisor Pat Kloske, who is normally the nurse manager of specialty clinics at the Little Rock VA hospital.
The call center — staffed by about 15 — took 256 calls in one hour over the weekend, Kloske said.
First responders along the Gulf Coast of Texas on Sunday had found five dead and more than a dozen injured in the storm’s aftermath. Authorities had reported thou-
sands of high water rescues, and some began asking the public to donate rescue boats.
The storm is expected to continue deluging the region with rain for several days, according to the National Weather Service, with some predicted totals as high as 50 inches.
The uncertainty means that neither the Little Rock VA nor the Arkansas National Guard know how long their respective help will be needed.
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and several other surrounding states have an emergency response agreement in place to assist one another when disaster strikes, Phillips said.
The Guard’s survey team, which Texas requested, will test air, water and soil samples to check for any elements that may be harmful to humans, Phillips said. The deploying guardsmen were already on active duty.
As of Sunday evening, only the survey team had been requested, but that could change over the next few days.
Sheep Dog Impact Assistance will deploy about 60 volunteers over the next two weeks, mostly from the Northwest Arkansas chapter, said founder and President Lance Nutt. Sheep Dog teams from Fort Smith, central Arkansas, Kansas, Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma will also deploy.
“We are currently planning to head for Rockport with Houston now getting a lot of attention,” Nutt said, referring to one of the small coastal towns that sustained widespread damage. “Most of the smaller communities are now missing out on major support. This mirrors what happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.”
Nutt said the organization’s greatest need will be monetary support for the large quantities of fuel and supplies they’ll need. Donations to the organization can be made online at http://sheepdogia.org/get-involved/donate/.
Two nurses at the Little Rock VA on Sunday spent several hours on the phone with the neighbor of a Texas veteran in critical condition. The neighbor had already called 911, but had been placed on a waiting list for an ambulance.
The neighbor then called the VA’s emergency line, which routed to Little Rock where the nurses were trying to keep the veteran and neighbor calm while walking them through any available home remedies to resolve the situation, Kloske said.
“Are you close to a fire station?” one nurse asked over the phone. “Oh, you can’t get to it?
“What’s his blood pressure? I know this is a stressful situation, but you have to keep a level head.”
Cheryl Thompson is a caregiver at the VA’s Eugene J. Towbin Healthcare Center in North Little Rock, but she volunteered to work the phones at the Little Rock facility on her day off Sunday.
Most of the calls she fielded were veterans canceling prescheduled appointments because of the Texas weather. One man who called explained that his house had been destroyed.
“Some of the calls have been stressful,” she said. “But you just do the best you can, be apologetic and ask how you can help.”