Grandma's COVID-19 S.O.S

S.O.S. (Save Our Seniors): COVID-19 can kill my mom without ever getting into her body. It can starve her.

There's a plan to save her and a whole lot of seniors and others struggling to get food plus supplies while housebound and/or self-quarantined. The issue is that the plan isn't gaining attention fast enough. Let's change that right now.

If a virus is what’s taking us all down then we need to go viral in defense by spreading the word of this plan to the governors of every state and to the White House.

Let's take a look at what happened to my elderly mother as a canary in a COVID-19 mine.

I live in Norfolk, Virginia. My fiercely indepedent mother, Glen Kristi, is 89, living alone in New Jersey. At the onset of the Pandemic she was abandoned by her live-in companion, ran out of food and when the Instacart app crashed, she rationed and went hungry for three days while Instacart raced to meet demand.

In this rare instance of a pandemic, restaurants were either closed or their delivery services overwhelmed.

I called everyone: her neighbors, police, Senior Services, Social Services and Emergency Management. I found out that there was no plan in place there to get food to homebound seniors in an emergency. All her neighbors are new and no relatives live nearby.

If I make the 7-hour drive each way (with multiple rest stops and gas stops for exposure risks) around lockdown lines and the National Guard and drive her here I break her bubble and can infect her. Also, I'm a Diabetic at risk myself.

When help finally arrived and she rushed to open the door, she was too weak from not eating - she fainted.

As a journalist with 30+ years of experience I went all-in looking for a way to S.O.S. - Save Our Seniors – (and others who are in dire straits) from running out of food in isolation during this pandemic.

I found the man with the plan and now we need to bring it to the attention of anyone in government who will listen.

The man with the plan is Scott Lewis at Disaster Solutions in West Palm Beach, Florida and he just gave me an insider’s look at a system being proposed by his small company named Disaster Solutions in West Palm Beach, Fla that really needs to get in front of state and federal decision-makers.

I believe this plan can unite official resources with private individuals and small companies currently trying to stem the tide unofficially via a valiant but heretofore uncoordinated effort of volunteerism and food donation/delivery to millions of homebound seniors.

Scott Lewis is a credentialed, Incident Commander. I know and trust Scott because he’s also a key part of the non-profit Eagle's Wings Foundation Eagle’s Wings Foundation (EWF) in Palm Beach which has responded to catastrophic disasters since 1999 with him as one of the team leaders.

I called Scott because after Hurricane Maria he helped me get my best friend’s 80-year-old mother, Sally Hennessey, a Carcinoid Cancer patient on oxygen who was running out of resources and medication, out of San Juan, Puerto Rico when all other agencies were too swamped to help.

I am NOT saying anything negative about our nation's incredible first responders or agencies. They all deserve our full respect and support.

All I’m saying is that sometimes they need backup and now is the time to call-in this type of amazing resource which is scalable and can be replicated across the nation.

His company has an all-hazards response team with extensive experience in the most catastrophic natural and man-made disasters in modern history – with its focus on supporting the homebound vulnerable population and data analysis and collection. He formed it after Katrina where he led a team which served 9,000 homebound per day – 126,000 – in just 14 days. He combined 900 military responders with civilian responders in a way never done before for Mass Care support.

THE PLAN - Start in Florida

For the COVID-19 crisis, I took a look at the Mass Care Operations they are proposing.

Scott explains. “This is bulk food. Nobody is preparing meals; so we’re not dealing with more contamination issues. There would be Health & Safety Officers on each large base wherein the entire task force is maintaining guidelines where crews are separated from each other as they box food, load the trucks, provide security, plus data collection and analysis teams. Incident Command Posts like we are proposing would be set up with small teams isolated from one another.”

Food is boxed food or canned food initially and day-by-day there will be changes as the mix of materials are distributed to the homebound. The operation will shift daily as data is collected and analyzed to where the priority needs are shifting.

Right now, there are small efforts all over that are doing their best. In this concept of operations, we would bring in representatives from Instacart, DoorDash, local supermarkets, etc. and coordinate them under local health officials and localities to identify where to put the limited resources to move and reach day-by-day.

He estimates that 10 sites like the organization did in Katrina would serve 1,000,000+ homebound.

“There’s nothing easy about this," Scott told me. "It’s very, very difficult, but it’s proactive. You have to be able to act, adapt and be very flexible."

Ideally a Beta test in a city of 100K in southeast Florida which is our home base working under a local command could be set up very quickly. We could see in just a couple of days how well it works.

If all we have to fight with is our time and social media then let's put out this S.O.S. and Save Our Seniors by asking the government to use all its resources and talk to the team with a real plan.

NOTE: If you are a public official interested in this plan a full PDF proposal is now available from Disaster Solutions by calling 1-561-855-4222 or Email Scott directly via [email protected]