Meet the USAID Disaster Specialist Helping Prepare Albania — and the World — for the Next Natural Disaster
Why USAID’s Dewey Perks is on a quest to train himself out of a job one disaster response at a time
In November 2019, a series of earthquakes and aftershocks hit Albania and surrounding countries in southeast Europe. The strongest, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake, was the most powerful quake to hit Albania in decades. USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) deployed a team of emergency response experts and structural engineers to provide humanitarian assistance, help coordinate international response teams, and support the Albanian Government’s damage assessments of buildings that may have been impacted by the earthquake and aftershocks.
Dewey Perks, leader of OFDA’s Urban Search and Rescue and Disaster Assessment Coordination Unit, deployed to Albania on USAID’s response team and worked hand-in-hand with Albanian emergency officials to respond to the earthquake.
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
I’m Dewey Perks. I work for the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in the Operations Division and I’m the leader for the Urban Search and Rescue and the Disaster Assessment Coordination Unit.
Before I came to work for OFDA in 2008, I was a firefighter in Fairfax County [Virginia]. And so since 1985, my focus has been on Urban Search and Rescue.
There are so many different governments and organizations involved in disaster preparedness and response. How do all of those organizations coordinate?
A lot of what we do in urban search and rescue falls under the U.N. umbrella with the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group and also the U.N. Disaster Assessment Coordination system.
The United Nations serves as the coordinator for international response. If a country is asking for international assistance, they are already overwhelmed. The last thing you need is to have 1,000 people lined up outside your office door [offering assistance], so the U.N. has the role to coordinate the international assistance being offered to the affected country. This is a very critical role.
You were recently in Albania helping to respond to the November 2019 earthquake. What was your experience like there and how prepared did you feel Albania was when you arrived? And do you feel like they’re more prepared now to respond to the next disaster?
I think one of the things that we always have to consider is what can we learn and what can we share. Our job really is to train ourselves out of a job. I think Albania was already well-prepared for it [the earthquake].
Albania is very fortunate with its location that there were 10 Urban Search and Rescue teams from Europe that were able to get there very quickly. Albania already had a lot of buildings that had been partially damaged during the September 2019 earthquake, so they made a bilateral request [to the U.S.] for structural engineers.
The main response came from the European Union. We went in to assist both the European Union as well as the U.N. system for coordination [of international response teams]. We had three people that were doing coordination and two structural engineers, who cleared over 160 buildings. Their efforts allowed nearly 1,500 families to be able to move back into their homes.
Before we left on December 19, 2019, we had trained and explained our coordination methodology to colleagues of the Albanian Government. By that point, we felt confident and more importantly, they felt confident that they [had the capacity to] continue doing structural assessments, but also continue the needed coordination.
In Albania, it was very interesting because of the international influx of structural engineers who were working with local Albanian engineers. So you’re raising capacity everyday, by learning and sharing with the Albanian engineers who had not necessarily been so familiar on how to assess fractured buildings after an earthquake. All had the benefit of working with the international community to learn how they do that in their country. So the two engineers USAID sent there learned as much as they were able to teach, if you will. But it’s also part of that, that bond, when people are in need, we (USAID) want to be able to make sure we’re sending the right tool for that.
How do you convince people who have been through an earthquake that their home or building is safe?
It becomes personal at times and working with our engineers there, convincing someone that it’s not going to fall down. It is very difficult. And it came down to a lot of times using translation and also making up little signboards that would show, ‘I would let my family sleep here.’ And so you have to drop it down to that personal level.
How do you help these countries prepare for future disasters?
We want to train ourselves out of the job. It’s all about building resilience and building capacity. So, through the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group, the U.N. has divided the world into three regions and each year we do exercises in each of these three regions.
It’s an opportunity for them to test their disaster operations plans, if you will. The intent is to bolster and build capacity in their country. It’s also very beneficial for search and rescue teams, especially those from abroad, because they could run an exercise within an exercise while they’re there working with the scenario that they’re faced with. They’re also really becoming familiar with the country, the airports, the logistics. Where can I get resupplies? How does a road system work? How does the electricity grid work? So it’s all about learning and sharing.
OFDA’s budget is a tiny part of the federal budget overall. Why do you think it’s so important that the U.S. Government invest in disaster relief and disaster preparation?
For me, it goes back to, we have to build a community. And the more that we can do that, then the less we have to do later on down the road. So it is all about building resiliency, increasing capacity, but it also goes farther than that. What we want to do is build relationships which lessen the need for us to have to go, but also to make sure that the countries are better prepared if something occurs. And just on a practical level, when a disaster hits, we’re not there yet. So the more we can build that community, the faster they can respond effectively.
What was your most memorable experience with USAID responding to a disaster?
I can remember in Turkey in 1999. A family member refused to give up on a building. And he just kept working every day, every day, every day until he found one of his relatives alive. So we were able to get him out. It was very emotional for everybody who was there with us. But every mission has something that makes you go, wow, and you know it’s gonna be etched in your memory forever. But I think one of the things that always amazes me is the camaraderie that not only with the international responders, but also the relationships you build with the population that has been affected. You’re looking at a population that has no water, has no firewood, but whatever they have they want to share because they see that you’re trying to make a difference.
In addition to deploying disaster response personnel to assess structural damage and coordinate with the Albanian Government and other agencies, USAID partnered with the Albanian Red Cross to provide critical relief items to hard-hit areas. USAID also supported UNICEF to provide safe spaces for children to heal, play, and socialize in the immediate wake of the earthquake.
