Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim is asking volunteers to join the city's Medical Reserve Corps.

The corps is looking for volunteers with healthcare experience -- like doctors, nurses and first responders -- to lend a hand.

Volunteers will help with floods, fires, natural disasters and other community emergencies.

Officials say the city will train them for any crisis.

"We've had instances in the past where volunteers have made and continue to make such a dramatic difference in peoples' lives over and above what government can do -- even what our emergency services can do," says Ganim.

The call for help comes at the beginning of National Preparedness Month.