Provided to the MPT
I’ve absorbed a lot of what I know about emergency preparations (and I’m always learning!) from my volunteer role with the Madison Park Emergency Communications Hub. Hubs are predetermined emergency gathering places throughout Seattle where neighbors and community members can exchange information and resources at times when city services are not immediately available.
Hubs are activated (in Hub lingo, they “stand up”) in an emergency when regular communications like phone and Internet in your area are disrupted. When you lose cell and web access, Hubs might be the best emergency resource (other than your immediate neighbors) while you’re waiting for the city to “get to you” for issues specific to your area. For instance, here in Madison Park, we typically rely on Madison Street to get in and out of the neighborhood. A street blocked by earthquake rubble would make it difficult for residents to get to hospitals, schools, workplaces, stores, or other people and services important to us. Likewise, emergency services, deliveries, waste management trucks, buses, drivers, and loved ones couldn’t get to us.
How does a Hub work?
When communications go down due to serious earthquakes, Hub volunteers are encouraged to first secure their own housing and check on immediate neighbors. Then, they gather at the designated Hub area (like our Madison Park tennis courts) to stand up a staging area with items from a “Hub box” – a large onsite lockbox containing not food, water, or medical supplies, but low-tech communications “must-haves,” like tables, canopies, easels/whiteboards, and pens and paper. Volunteers use these items to set up predesignated “Hub stations” to help neighbors help each other. Most Hubs also post educational posters to guide neighbors in subjects like treating water for contamination and disposing of waste and also have instructions on other “camping hacks” for keeping warm, creating shelter, and caring for family and pets. Some Hub volunteers will bring along walkie-talkie-style GMRS radios to communicate with each other and across the city. A few lucky Hubs even have Ham radio-certified volunteers who will set up their rigs to send and receive messages to and from other Hubs and city services.
Hubs are completely volunteer-operated. Over time, “Hubsters” practice roles to organize themselves for the Hub’s communications “stations.” Often, adjacent neighborhood Hub volunteers try to learn from and support each other by participating in each other’s education and practice events. Madison Park, Madison Valley, Leschi/Madrona, and Capitol Hill neighbors have been helping each other fine-tune their systems and practice their role-playing.
Most Hubs are organized similarly, with key Hub roles including the following:
• Greeter: listens to issues, directs people to the right area
• Message Taker: writes down people’s issues so that everything is tracked
• Hub Manager: sets up the Hub, supports Hub-stationed volunteers, problem-solves
• Information Manager: manages a whiteboard and map with important status updates
• Resource Manager: helps match item needs to item offers; tracks item locations
• Volunteer Coordinator: manages volunteer offers/needs and availability
If there are enough “warm bodies,” a Hub might also have these optional roles:
• Educator: keeps an “education binder” of useful information, and directs people to self-help posters
• Radio Operator: communicates with the city, other neighborhood Hubs, or nearby volunteers using a GMRS or Ham radio
• Radio Assistant: helps the Radio Operator log/manage radio conversations
• Runner: takes messages between Hub stations
• Medical Coordinator: matches healthcare volunteers with healthcare needs
• Reunification Manager: helps people find each other and lost children/pets
As a Hub volunteer, you donate whatever time you have available. Volunteers don’t have to be experts — and you have more skills than you know!
Two important Hub roles that work very closely together in a Hub are Greeter and Message Taker.
What do the Greeter and Message Taker do in a Hub?
The Greeter acts as the “face” of the Hub, directing Hub visitors to the correct location for help or information. The Greeter’s role is to sort things out, not to solve problems. And the Greeter works closely with one or more Message Takers to track neighbors’ concerns and to keep the Hub moving efficiently. For example, a Greeter might send people with basic questions about water or sanitation to the Educator station. People who have or need supplies (like bottled water or propane) would go to the Message Taker to write up their needs. And people who have vital skills or who need help from skilled neighbors (like help with plumbing or foreign languages) are also sent to the Message Taker to take down their details. Urgent info, however, might go directly to the Information Manager, or perhaps the Radio area.
The Greeter, ideally, enjoys working with people and is a good listener and communicator, with a solid understanding of how the Hub is organized.
The Message Taker helps track people’s information, using a form to write down details on a neighbor’s needs or skills (and location) and sending the neighbor, along with the form, to the appropriate station. The Message Taker also learns to discern any urgent information that needs to get to the Radio Operator or Information Manager for immediate attention. For instance, if there is a makeshift shelter with room for 30 people at the Madison Park Bathhouse, that form would go to the Information Manager, but a message about critical damage to a local bridge would go to the Radio Operator.
An efficient Message Taker is good at making sense of disorganized information, asking clarifying questions, and summarizing the information, hopefully using legible handwriting!
While you may have a preference, a Hub volunteer arrives at the site without a preassigned role. Hub vests and badges are assigned “first come, first serve” based on the most urgent needs. For instance, I know I wouldn’t be the best Message Taker, but if that role needs to be filled when I arrive, I’ll be doing my best with my primitive printing. During an emergency, Hub volunteers rotate in and out of shifts depending on their own needs, so the next shift might make use of my good supply of energy and put me in the role of a Runner, delivering, not writing, messages!
In future columns, I’ll discuss some other interesting Hub roles. Hope you’ll spread the word about Hubs and how you can go there to help — and get help — in an emergency. To learn more, get in touch with us at madparkhub@gmail.com.
You can join us as a volunteer (or a neighbor wanting to help us practice) when we next stand up our Hub on Sept. 22, 1-3 p.m. in Madison Park by the tennis courts. Bring your family and friends (kids welcome!) and help us get better at helping each other in an emergency.
Dana Armstrong is a Madison Park Emergency Hub volunteer.