In September 2018, Standby Task Force activated to consolidate information on the status of hospitals in the areas affected by Hurricane Florence. Hurricane Florence was wreaking havoc on the East Coast of the USA. The winds died down slightly but the slow movement of the storm meant a lot of heavy rain was expected for the next days, with flooding expected in many areas with wide scale evacuations. An estimated 1.7 million people were been advised to leave the area. 10 million homes were under storm condition warnings.

The SBTF Core team was been in touch with the FEMA Crowdsourcing Unit since the beginning of this emergency. We decided to work on seeking information on the medical facilities as it was considered one of the priority needs. The activation lasted 24 hours, but volunteers were on standby to extend this as information needs came up. The information produced was shared with FEMA Crowdsourcing Coordination Unit. In the end, SBTF members collected so much information and the feedback from FEMA was really positive.