The Red Bulletin April 2020

TEAM XX RUBICON EDITOR ILLUSTRATOR
even the most remote environments.
With this equipment, the team is also
able to consult a remote doctor who
can step in and advise when medical
staff on the ground are sparse.
Naturally, there is a plentiful supply
of medication catering to pre-hospital
care including cuts, fractures and
tetanus, as well as plastic containers
full of medical packs with everything
from tents to water purification
systems. “The reality of the situation
is that the majority of times we go out,
we encounter people with a lack of
access to healthcare,” explains Porter.
“We’ve had to deal with infected
lacerations. We need to be prepared to
temporarily set a broken bone. There
can be malnourishment or no access
to clean drinking water, so we carry
antibiotics, too.”
The operations centre also houses
an impressive gym with TRX (bodyweight
resistance training) equipment,
workout benches and pull-up bars; it’s
essential that the team is able to hold
its own in remote locations. “Physical
fitness is important to us,” Porter says.
“The areas we work in are typically
very hot and humid. Frequently, you’ll
have to hike between seven and 10
miles with one of these rucksacks.
You have to be able to operate without
bringing the team down.”
Porter says illnesses among the
teams themselves are rare – which is
not to say operations are risk-free.
“We went to Nepal after the 2015
earthquake,” he recalls. “We had
a team of 45 on the ground when
the second earthquake occurred.
They removed themselves from the
building, did accountability, let us
know that they were safe, then
pressed on. In general, we’ve either
been pretty safe or pretty lucky.”
A CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM
When The Red Bulletin visits in early
December 2019, Team Rubicon has
just deployed a unit to the Marshall
Islands in the central Pacific to assist
with the ongoing dengue fever
epidemic, and is also searching its
volunteer base for medical providers
who can fly out to Samoa at the
behest of the WHO to help tackle
a measles outbreak.
The organisation has also been
on the front line of the Australian
wildfires, a crisis that has – at the
“PEOPLE NEED
SOMETHING TO
RALLY AROUND
WHEN THINGS
GET CHAOTIC”
time of this magazine going to print
– seen more than 17 million hectares
of bushland razed, around 6,000
buildings destroyed, and as many
as 32 people (including volunteer
firefighters) killed. In 2019, the
Australian wildfire season began in
late August/early September – a full
three months earlier than usual. Since
then, the fire threat has been nearconstant,
with Team Rubicon Australia
(TRA) first invited by the Office for
Emergency Management to respond
to fires in Rappville in northern New
South Wales back in October. Its work
is primarily focused on debris and tree
removal at locations across NSW.
“In the last four months, we’ve
conducted more operations than
in the preceding three years,” says
TRA CEO Geoff Evans.
The team is now awaiting the
go-ahead to deploy to Victoria and
southern NSW, where fires still
rage. “The authorities in Victoria
and New South Wales are delaying our
deployment to these areas due to the
ongoing risk, and, more importantly,
so that they may vector us on to the
hardest-hit areas, some of which may
yet be to come,” says Evans.
In Australia, the challenge will be
maintaining on-the-ground support
across three areas of operation, as
well as managing the psychological
toll endured by homeowners, many of
whom, Evans says, have “lost all hope”.
Despite this, from Australia to
Dallas, the company’s ethos is one
of optimism, of finding hope in the
chaos. Porter recalls being dispatched
to Moore, Oklahoma, in the aftermath
of the 2013 tornado: “In one of the
neighbourhoods, there was a tree at
the end of a cul-de-sac. The tornado
came through and ripped all of the
leaves off, so all that was left were the
trunk and the branches; everything
else around it was flattened. But then
somebody took an American flag and
nailed it to the tree, and that became
a central [focus] point. People need
something to rally around when things
are so chaotic.”
For Porter, it’s moments like this
that make Team Rubicon’s work so
important. “Where there’s a need, we
try to fill it. The best thing about the
job for me is knowing we’re making
a difference,” he says. “One hundred
years from now, people will be writing
books on the things we’ve done.”
teamrubiconglobal.org
THE RED BULLETIN 57