About Us
During the Tubbs fire in Sonoma County in 2017, hundreds of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals volunteered to provide medical care in evacuation centers. We learned so much from this experience. Then, in 2019, the Kincaid Fire led to the evacuation of almost 200,000 people which really brought home the need to document best practices for future evacuation centers. It was time to write down what we had learned so that others didn't have to reinvent the wheel. If you have experiences/ links you would like to share, please email us at info@disastercrashcart.org.
Acknowledgements
The outpouring of support and love from our community during these fires was amazing. As we rose from the ashes, so many, many people contributed to the development of these ideas that it would be impossible to name them all! Here we acknowledge the people who specifically contributed to this website.
Panna Lossy, MD, UCSF clinical faculty at the Sutter Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency, worked in multiple shelters through both fires and spearheaded this website project.
Travers Ebling, RN, designed the SignUp Genius template during the Tubbs fire and dramatically improved volunteer coordination! He also staffed many shifts at the shelter and generally provided out of the box thinking for how to make systems work better.
Tara Scott, MD, Director, Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency shared her experiences leading through disaster and provided invaluable on the ground organizational support.
Michelle Patino, RN, long time Emergency Room nurse, set up model medical systems at the Petaluma Fairgrounds during both the Tubbs and Kincaid Fires. She is a founder of Disaster Emergency Medical Assistance.
Ellie Wiener MD, contributed to the sections on managing volunteers.
In addition there are literally hundreds of health care providers who volunteered in the shelters and helped come up with these systems in real time during the emergencies. The Red Cross, Sonoma County Public Health Department, HPEACE, North Bay AFP and local hospital staff all were a critical part of the response. We all learned from each other. This is truly a community effort! Finally, the California Health Care Foundation Leadership Fellowship was the wind on the embers that ignited this website.