We have been receiving many shipments from the HHS Supply Center at Perry Point for "Basic Load" items for the OH-5 DMAT team.  The largest load being sent from Western Shelter in December, consisting of tents, showers, heater, and much more.  This load made the majority of the tractor-trailer load.  Other shipments started arriving as early as mid-September and have been moved to the VA storage.

By January, 2002, we had much of our medical supplies and basic load at our VA warehouse.  Team members spent a lot of hours breaking down the skid loads, putting them into our inventory and checking them against the ship list.  We also made some room in the VA storage for the Western Shelter tents that were to arrive the same week and can be seen stored in the long boxes pictured below.

Some of the supplies that have been received through January is pictured above. It is getting very hard to move around in the storage area as most of the floor space is used.  We will need to start breaking down the supplies and storing them in the large Action Packers seen above.

Pat types in the supply quantities and description (above) while others call out information on equipment to be inventoried as it is unpacked (below).

Unpacking and counting items take up a lot of time, but the volunteers are dedicated to the end.  While some counted others carried out trash and shelved items that were checked in.

The list contains more than 300 items including four 35' Western Shelter tents, a 20' octagon Western Shelter tent, insulation kits, floors, packing cases, lighting, tent heaters, two diesel generators, power distribution systems, cots, stretchers, sleeping bags, shower system, water and fuel cans, sinks, water bladder, water purifier, defibrillator, EKG monitor, thermometers, ventilator, communications tools, laptops, antennas, medical supplies and much, much more.

At a later work bee, several members sanded, chem-cleaned and  then painted the IDs on the shipping cases.