“I realized how vulnerable our community is to disaster during the big winter storm in December 2007, when we were cut off and without electricity for five days or more. As a retired physician, I realized that people in our community would not be able to get to their usual sources of medical care in such a situation, and that I could help. Knowing that there were quite a few medical professionals in the area, both retired and not, a few of us organized a unit of the Medical Reserve Corps. We’ve worked with the Emergency Volunteer Corps from the beginning, integrating medical care concerns with all the other preparedness activities in the community. It’s still a work in progress (that is, there’s always more work to do), but we’re a lot better prepared now!"