Activations

             When disaster strikes, the Blood Emergency Readiness Corps responds.

In response to blood inventory needs in Florida following the impact of Hurricane Milton on the region’s blood supply.

• Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane at Siesta Key, Florida on the evening of Wednesday, October 9 and moved across the state through the early morning hours of Thursday, October 10.
• Sustained winds of more than 120 miles per hour and heavy rain have caused widespreaddamage, power outages, and cancellation of blood drives and missed donation appointments across the region.
• The AABB Disaster Response Task Force has been activated in response to Hurricane Milton and BERC member SunCoast Blood Centers, based in Sarasota, has requested blood inventory support through activation of Blood Emergency Readiness Corps.
• BERC members that are on call this week are now preparing shipments of type O-positive and O-negative red blood cells to ensure patient needs in the region are met as SunCoastBlood Centers works to recover from the storm’s impact on blood donation.
 
 

In response to blood inventory needs on Florida’s Gulf Coast following the impact of Hurricane Debby on the region’s blood supply. Hurricane Debby made landfall on the west coast of Florida early Monday, bringing high winds and heavy rain that have caused widespread cancellation of blood drives and missed donation appointments across the region. Blood providers across the U.S. who are on call for BERC this week are now shipping a reserve supply of blood components needed by hospitals in the affected region.

In response to a destructive and deadly tornado in Perryton, TX, Our Blood Institute activated BERC to send blood products to ensure enough units were available to aid the community. Blood Bank of Hawaii, Cascade Regional Blood Bank, ImpactLife, Inova Blood Center, LifeStream Blood Bank, Mississippi Blood Services, Northern Community Blood Bank, South Texas Blood & Tissue and We Are Blood were the responding centers.

Following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX, BERC activated to send blood products to South Texas Blood & Tissue to ensure had the blood they needed to support the community. On-call responding blood centers: The Community Blood Center, SunCoast Blood Centers, Carter BloodCare, The Blood Connection, Vitalant, Rock River Valley Blood Center, Community Blood Center of the Ozarks, LifeServe Blood Center, The Blood Center and Miller Keystone Blood Center.

In response to the devastating tornadoes that struck several midwestern and southern states, BERC activated to send blood products to ensure Blood Assurance in Chattanooga, TN, had access to a needed blood supply. On-call responding blood centers: The Community Blood Center, SunCoast Blood Centers, Carter BloodCare, and The Blood Connection.

On-call BERC shipped boxes of red blood cells for trauma care to the eight remaining victims of a school shooting in Oxford, MI, after a request from Versiti-Michigan, the blood supplier serving the local area. On-call responding blood centers: Central Pennsylvania Blood Bank, Coastal Bend Blood Center, Oklahoma Blood Institute.

A mass shooting at a grocery store in Memphis, TN produced an urgent need for extra pints of blood to care for the 12 surviving victims who were rushed to hospitals after the assault. Answering a call from Vitalant, a blood supplier serving the local area, BERC raced to ship boxes of red blood cells for trauma care. Read more. On-call responding blood centers: Houchin Community Blood Bank, South Texas Blood & Tissue Center, We Are Blood.