When a disaster strikes, everyone pays attention – it's all over the news. What I didn't realize before this experience that the recovery is just as important as the rescue. There's maybe even more need during recovery. First, the volunteers we worked with were retirees – most around age 70. The Red Cross needs younger volunteers to help with the heavy lifting in their warehouses. Also, we saw how coordination across the disaster-response supply chain is critical – not dissimilar from Astellas' product supply chain. While it's tempting to just ship any useful supplies to a disaster area, careful planning can make all the difference.
Take tarps as an example. If you ship tarps to a disaster area without ropes to hold them in place, they're not going to be as useful as if you ship them together with the ropes. The key is having the systems and knowledge in place to help the volunteers work smart. The most overwhelming moment of my experience was walking into the warehouse at the beginning of the week and seeing how disorganized it was, and my proudest moment was at the end of the week when this huge warehouse was in good shape because of the work we had done. We made a difference, and that was a great feeling.