Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.
Sherri Monroe is the executive director of the Red Cross of Greater Orlando. The red cross provided immediate services to first responders and victims families in the aftermath of the Pulse massacre.
At that time she was stationed in Daytona. On the Sunday morning following the shooting she turned on the news. Shootings are pretty common in any city, but the numbers were shocking. This wasn’t some kind of altercation. She stated to get a feeling of the scope of what was going on. You don’t expect something like that to happen in your area.
She knew Red Cross would be responding but se wasn’t part of the Orlando branch. Red Cross was one of the first organizations on the scene other than first responders. Their roll initially was supporting first responders. It’s summer its hot, so we provided water, snacks and food.
What Red Cross did in this situation is sort of similar to hat the FBI did. No matter how prepared Orlando Police might have been, they were not prepared for this. The FBI knew what to do because they have seen this all before. Red Cross sort of did that on the community side. Within 24 hours people were on the ground here who had been through Sandy Hook, and other mass shooting events. They had seen this before. A local church immediately provided their address as a family assistance center. Red Cross stepped in to say ‘Look this isn’t going to work.’ It was fine for the moment, but there was no way to keep the families protected. That was part of the reason Camping World Stadium became an assistance center. They could set up all the resources from all the different agencies. But most importantly they had a fence around it. They could let the families in and close the gates to keep media and curiosity seekers out.
The Red Cross worked closely with the city to help them figure out what they needed to do next. They also let then know what was coming. You have to stay in front of the situation. It is hard to come back from behind. The following week with all of the vigils, and all of the events, the Red Cross brought in a lot of mental health counselors that could be at those events. They also provided water and simple things like that. The city had set up a 242-7 call line out of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), but they didn’t have enough people to man it. The Red Cross ran it for them. Sherri was responsible for keeping enough volunteers on the lines. People might call if they could not locate someone, or their car was stuck in the area around Pulse which was locked down, or a call might be about how to transport a body back to Puerto Rico. Mental health counselors were available to talk to the people taking the phone calls. Some calls were challenging.