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The Best of
Many Worlds
By Bruce Dries
Almost three
weeks after the World Trade Center towers fell, Jill Routch Berardi
walked the fifty-two blocks from her hotel to her assignment at
Ground Zero. She was approached by a growing number of people
affected by the disaster who had spotted her Red Cross vest. They
told her of the loss of their jobs and damage to their homes or
businesses, of missing or injured friends and family, or how
grateful they were for help. She arrived at the Red Cross service
area with a crowd in tow, people who either needed help or who were
asking how they could help.
Berardi, a 1990
graduate of IUP’s Journalism department, is director of marketing
and communications for the Southwestern Pennsylvania (SWPA) Chapter
of the American Red Cross. A seven-year veteran of the organization,
Berardi was sent to New York City two weeks after the event to speak
for the Red Cross and ensure that the media, and therefore the
public, understood what the organization was doing. Wearing a
hardhat and mask amid the dust and debris, she not only talked to
the media but also found herself, along with many other Red Cross
workers, helping by such simple acts as watching a dog while the
owner received counseling, getting water for a fireman, or just
listening to someone who needed to tell a story.
She is hardly the
only IUP-Red Cross connection. The chief operations officer for the
SWPA chapter is Rob Skertich ’98, and Tami Marsico Aubele, a 1999
grad of IUP’s Journalism department, is the chapter’s communications
coordinator. Jessika Liscinsky Strauss ’81 is assistant to the chief
executive officer and is a local disaster volunteer, and Scott
Morgan ’83, president of Blattner Brunner advertising agency, is on
the Board of Director’s Executive Committee. In addition, current
IUP student Jim Wagner is a case worker who assists families in
receiving services in times of disaster.
Getting his start
as a Red Cross-trained lifeguard, Skertich has been involved in
public safety since 1978—as an instructor at IUP’s Criminal Justice
Training Center, running EMS and rescue training programs; as a
teacher of public safety at a vocational school for nine years; and
joining the Red Cross in 1999 as emergency services director.
In the
wake of Hurricane Katrina,
American Red Cross
Emergency Response Vehicles, driven by volunteers, delivered
thousands of meals and supplies to area residents as they made their
way back into Waveland, Miss., to survey the damage and determine if
any of their belongings were salvageable. Photo by Danielle Evans, a
volunteer from Michigan who was on the public affairs team out of
Gulfport, Miss.
As the chapter
COO, Skertich oversees all programs and services in the four
counties of the chapter (Allegheny, Greene, Fayette, and
Washington), including health and safety programs, disaster
services, and the Armed Forces Emergency Services program, a
communication link between military members and their families.
His main
specialty is as government liaison. When Flight 93 crashed near
Somerset, Skertich’s role was to work with the FBI, NTSB, federal
and state emergency management agencies, and local officials. In
addition, he made sure that the local and state representatives,
county commissioners, and others were aware of where Red Cross
services were located and that they received any needed information.
“The sheer
magnitude and the strangeness of the disasters in the past couple of
years have really affected the disaster response,” said Skertich.
“When you talk about the recovery effort after September 11, some
people think, ‘Oh, that just happened in New York and the Pentagon
and Somerset.’ But it was a nationwide Red Cross effort. We had ten
different disaster relief operations going on all over the country
because of September 11, with evacuees, phone banks…. it was a very
large disaster relief operation.”
He noted that
many natural disasters result in flooding. In a ten-week period in
2005, eight hurricanes made landfall, resulting in the largest
mobilization of personnel and resources in Red Cross history.
As the townspeople of Ocean
Springs, Miss., tried to recover from the devastation caused by
Hurricane Katrina, they were able to find hope and hung
inspirational signs such as this to encourage their neighbors to
stay strong throughout the recovery. Photo: Danielle
Evans
“The situations
we have to help people in are sometimes absolutely heartbreaking,”
said Skertich. “You meet that first family member at the site of a
disaster, and that sticks with you forever. Even though they’re
probably not going to remember the individual, they know that
someone from our organization was there to help them through a
really bad time.”
It didn’t take
long for Tami Aubele to get her feet wet. After completing her
externship with UPMC’s news bureau, she was alerted to a Red Cross
opening by IUP journalism professor Randy Jesick. The timing was
perfect and she became the chapter’s communications coordinator.
Seventeen days later, the remnants of Hurricane Ivan slammed into
western Pennsylvania, flooding downtown Pittsburgh and affecting
three of the chapter’s four counties. Within two days, she had her
first live on-camera interview.
“It’s really an
important role that we take on in times of disaster,” said Aubele.
She
noted that it doesn’t matter whether it is a local or national
assignment—the disasters may be different, but the Red Cross’s
mission is always the same.
“We make
sure that all of the people that were affected understand that we’re
there, that we’re going to stay there, and what other teams are
there that will help them,” she said. “We get in touch with local
governments and have liaisons in disaster areas, and the public
affairs teams help take that information to the people.”
The nature of a
Red Cross assignment is generally two to three weeks at the scene.
The workers
know that soon another team member will come from somewhere else,
step into the spot, and take over the job. Knowing that, though,
doesn’t always maker it easy.
Aubele went to the Gulf Coast about
three months after Katrina struck. She was sent to Pearlington,
Mississippi, right across the St. Tammany river from Louisiana. Part
of the area was hit by the eye of the storm and ended up getting hit
by water from two sides.
“I was there for
ten days. It seemed much longer, but then again, not long enough at
times,” said Aubele. “You didn’t want to leave in the sense that you
want to continue the job, you want to see and make sure that the
loop was closed…. you just have to trust that everything is going to
go fine.”
As director of
marketing and communications, Berardi’s role during a disaster is to
“work the plan” of crisis communications. She usually learns about
the situation immediately. Her first moves are to get the right information
and get it out to the people who need to know, such as telling the
public about available shelters.
“We begin with a
proactive approach,” said Berardi. “We need to answer the appropriate questions and get the
information out. We stay in touch by pager and cell phone all hours
of the day and night with the disaster folks here who might be
leading that first responder step. People are there on scene and back at the office—people are positioned elsewhere, wherever
is appropriate, and we play it by ear. Whatever the Red Cross is
doing, whatever is needed, whatever changes happen, we need to
communicate that publicly and internally.
“We also provide ways that
the community can help. There’s a lot that starts at once—updating
our website, calls out to our entire media list…. We basically work
side by side with our disaster first responders, making sure that
the information being communicated is timely and accurate. And it
takes a whole army to do that right!”
In October, 2005,
areas of New England experienced some of the worst flooding in
memory. As the Red Cross spokesperson, Berardi spent a week in
Massachusetts when the Taunton Dam threatened to break. Red Cross
shelters were set up in those communities that were preparing for
evacuation. Fortunately, the dam held.
She was also
on-scene at the Quecreek mining disaster. The Red Cross, set up in
the local firehall, provided mental health experts and emotional
counselors for the families and those involved in the rescue
efforts. “I anticipated that my role in the end might have been more
of a negative one, talking about how the Red Cross is helping
families cope with their loss,” said Berardi. “And it turned out I
got to rejoice along with everyone else in the firehall.”
“I’m not a
trained counselor,” she said. “So my role there was to ensure that
the media, and therefore the public, understood what the Red Cross
was doing. If the Red Cross had to speak for any reason, I was there
to do that. A lot of times, it’s like being an advocate for the
family, because sometimes the family doesn’t want the media there.
So for the Quecreek mine and at the WTC area, many times it was just
making sure that the media knew what their parameters were and where
they could and couldn’t go.
“We try to help out the media, but we’re
also there to help the families. The media, in general,
respect that. For the most part, we’re all professionals, and as
long as we can help [the media] get what they need for their
stories, as long as they know we’re trying to help them, then they
understand that there’s some confidentiality issues and some
sensitivity that they need to have.
“I feel really
lucky to have landed in this job,” said Berardi. “It’s the best of
many worlds—careerwise, workwise, and personally. I believe that’s
what your work is all about. If it can sum up who you are and what
you like, it doesn’t feel like work…. We’re all so different here,
because of our pasts. But we all have the same goal, and we all
become sort of the same family. It doesn’t matter what your day job
is. You come and work the disaster, and when you’re done, you go
back to where you were.”
All photos
©American
Red Cross |
Front, l-r:
Jessika
Liscinsky Strauss ’81, Jim Wagner
Rear, l-r:
Jill Routch Berardi ’90, Rob Skertich ’98, Tami
Aubele ’99
Close-ups
Jill Berardi
Tami Aubele
Rob Skertich
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