How the Red Cross responds to emergencies in Northern Ireland

For example, Red Cross is supporting people left homeless having lost their entire communities as a result of the ongoing bush fires in Eastern Australia.

In Northern Ireland, the British Red Cross also responds to emergencies, where it provides humanitarian response in support of 999 organisations and multi-agency statutory responders including local councils and government departments. In 2019, Red Cross emergency response volunteers and staff responded to over 120 incidents including flooding, small and large scale fires, power outages, agricultural accidents and missing person incidents.

In fact, the charity’s local emergency response volunteers were called out nine times during Christmas week, with one of those calls being a house fire on New Year’s Eve.

Winter can be a particularly demanding time for everyone working in emergency response, as Joanne McKenna (inset), the Red Cross’ ER Operations Manager explains.

“Over Christmas and New Year, people’s guard is down, and there are often a few house fires. Some individuals find the stress of the season overwhelming, and sadly we’re often called out to search and rescue calls, where we support any family members at the scene, as well as the first responders.”

“The winter weather in Northern Ireland is now very wet and windy, and this looks set to continue and intensify because of climate change,” Joanne continues. “We have plans in place to support communities affected by flooding and power cuts.

“Our research shows that 70 per cent of households in the UK have taken no steps to prepare themselves for emergencies. We’d like to see that change.”

Across the UK, the Red Cross responds to an emergency roughly every four hours, and most of these don’t make the news. In 2017, a series of major emergency events took place, including the Manchester Arena bombing, London Bridge attacks, and the Grenfell Tower fire, as well as serious flooding in the North West of Northern Ireland that same summer.

The challenge of responding to an unprecedented number of major emergency events over a few months led to a major review of how the community and voluntary sector co-ordinates its response.

“We learnt a lot in 2017 – first and foremost that our primary task is one of listening. Every event and every person caught up in that event is unique. Our job isn’t to make assumptions about what people need or want; we let them tell us, and then we try to shape our support to suit the situation.

“Of course, the basics like food and shelter are vital, but each person will have distinct psychological, emotional, practical and financial needs in the immediate aftermath of a crisis. Many people will need ongoing support in the longer term, too.

“We also saw, particularly at Grenfell, how local communities took the lead in organising and supporting the people affected by this tragic incident. But we also learnt there can be an important role for Red Cross in helping communities to undertake needs assessments and to co-ordinate the right support at the right time to meet the needs of individuals and families in the days, weeks and months after significant events.

“We can also help manage the goodwill of concerned onlookers who want to do their bit but who don’t necessarily know where to start or how to organise themselves to the best effect. At Grenfell, it was our volunteers who sorted through tonnes of donated clothing, and in response to the events of that summer it was Red Cross who were able to co-ordinate fundraising and distribution efforts, raising £27 million in donations.

“Red Cross never deploys or works alone – we have long-standing, trusting relationships with emergency services organisations and government departments with statutory responsibilities for emergency planning.

“With our partners we are currently working on specific issues to reduce the severity of impacts, and to improve the support for people affected by emergencies in Northern Ireland.”

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