Once a team has been trained and equipped, they are ready to deploy in the event of disaster in their local area or country. They aim to be on air within 72 hours. The decision to deploy should happen within the first 24 hours, travel to the area during the second 24 hours and set-up in the third 24 hours.
The decision to deploy will be taken by each FRR team, in consultation with their partner organisations. It will depend on many factors, including:
- Is there a significantly affected community without resources or lacking information? (How many displaced persons rather than how many deaths. Is it more than 100,000?)
- What is the level of chaos and local disruption?
- Has the National Government asked for international/UN help?
- What is the predicted recovery time? More than 1-2 years?
- Is the local power still on? How long till it is restored?
- Are Radio/TV off air? If stations are still broadcasting are they providing useful critical information?
- Is there a deployable team of at least 3-4 people, not just trained but able to deploy in less than 24 hours?
- Is the kit locally available? If not, can one be borrowed from another team?
- Is there an available supply of radios for distribution?
- Are there tents, supplies, local language speakers, drivers etc available?
- Is there anyone – local or deploying partners – who can offer logistical support?