Help us help

By christina p. o’neill

Hurricane Katrina’s effects will be far-reaching, and they won’t go away soon. The relief effort is presenting an unparalleled logistical challenge of who needs what, and when. The nation’s businesses are giving money and resources in unprecedented numbers to help the 2 million people who have been temporarily and/or permanently displaced. The biggest challenge - to make sure the right kind of help gets to the needy.

Russell drove south in a Red Cross emergency response vehicle to Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s state capital and the headquarters for the Red Cross for Southeastern Louisiana, about 75 miles from New Orleans, where New Orleans evacuees were being sent. She and her team arrived August 29 and faced an unprecedented set of needs. But they couldn’t go directly into New Orleans. "There were difficulties with different government and state agencies on who they would allow in, or not," she says.

When they were finally allowed in, on Saturday, Sept. 3, an untold number of New Orleans residents had already been evacuated. Communication was difficult because the region’s phone system, including the 800 numbers for federal and private relief agencies, was not working.

The response of the nation’s businesses - both large and small - to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina is unprecedented. The storm displaced 2 million people, many permanently. In what some have called the greatest domestic population disruption since the Civil War, there are things that are needed right now - and things that will be needed later.

Not in this country

Russell, a Boylston resident, is a four-year volunteer with the American Red Cross, joining right after Sept. 11, 2001. She’s the sole proprietor of Scentsibilities, a two-and-a-half-year-old aromatherapy business on Route 70 in Boylston, so it was relatively uncomplicated, she says, for her to decide to shut down the business for the length of her Red Cross tour.

The vehicle she drove south in is normally used for "mobile feeding" - going house to house after a storm, delivering meals to people in homes without electricity. "But in this case, it was very different, because people weren’t in their homes any more," but rather, in shelters. So the Red Cross kitchen distributed to shelters, including the convention center in Baton Rouge, which held 7,000 people.

What she found when she finally got to New Orleans was like nothing else she’d ever seen, she says. Saturday, Sept. 3, two Red Cross vehicles arrived at the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans. "There, we found people stranded. Without food, without water," she says. "We didn’t know how long they had been there. They were hungry, that was for sure. And the place was ankle high in trash, children and babies lying on the sidewalk. It broke my heart. It was one of the saddest things I’d ever seen. It’s very hard to believe that in this country, it could happen."

Red Cross volunteers passed out baby formula, diapers, snacks and water, and then started up operations at the airport. It served as a staging area for people being evacuated. Some of them, newly rescued from roofs, boats, and from water-filled streets, hadn’t eaten in days. The Salvation Army served hot meals; the Red Cross served MREs, or meals ready to eat.

"We did a lot of work helping them find missing families," Russell says. "We [asked them], do you know where your family is? If they didn’t, we took down their information, we tried to make phone calls for them. I found someone’s mother for her, which is very nice, I hunted [for] some guy’s daughter who had no idea he was still alive. Hadn’t heard from him. While they were waiting for the plane, we just went around one to one and listened to their stories. We found out what they needed, found out what we could do while they were sitting waiting for the airplane and I did that for the whole rest of the time I was there."

Ironically, in a region where the temperatures topped 100 degrees, the need at the airport was for blankets, because of the air conditioning. "The people were cold," she says. "They’d been wet, and then they were in this air conditioning and they were not used to it." The Red Cross ran out of blankets twice.

Working 10-hour days, Russell used her own cell phone to dial direct numbers for evacuees, to connect them with family members. The regular phone system’s 800 numbers - including those for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross - were inoperable the entire time she was there. Additionally, for the evacuees boarding planes out of the city - some of whom had never left New Orleans, let alone been in a plane - there was no information as to where in the country they were being sent.

Too little, then too much

The need for goods presented a challenge. While businesses and individuals all over the country geared up for relief efforts by packaging goods to send to the storm-affected area, the needs varied on a daily basis. "It’s a very dynamic situation," Russell says. "The first day we went to the airport, there was no water. By two days later, there was more water than the state of Louisiana could drink, but there weren’t any blankets. So, then we got blankets but we ran out of food. That’s a day-to-day situation. If you’re sending a truck from here, who knows, by the time you get there, what you’re going to need."

That’s why she and others say it’s imperative for those who want to send goods rather than cash to coordinate the effort through a relief agency such as the Salvation Army or the Red Cross, which can inventory and warehouse the goods coming in. For short-term needs, she says, cash is best - relief agencies can then purchase the goods they need locally as needed. But the tons of non-perishable goods being sent to the south will likely find their way to social service agencies and churches, and will fill long-term needs, she says.

Now, the crisis is in its second stage - where to put the evacuees. Baton Rouge has seen its population double, and Houston’s population has also surged. Russell’s sister, a teacher in Houston, has told her that the goal now is to get evacuees out of the Astrodome by Sept. 19. Four households on her sister’s street have opened their homes to evacuees. "Everybody down there is pretty consumed with how to take care of these people," Russell says.

Cyber-help

The business community’s response has been unprecedented. Companies are giving outright donations, matching their employees’ donations, and giving goods and services.

"I won’t pretend it hasn’t been a chaotic week," said Jennifer Greeson, Intel’s public policy/PR manager, on Sept. 9. "The situation is changing on such a rapid basis that everything’s fluid. ... It’s a challenge but one that we are more than happy to meet."

Intel Corp. pledged $1 million to the American Red Cross and will match its employees’ donations at the end of this month, says Greeson. But it’s also allocating volunteers. Greeson says a team of tech volunteers is based at the Washington headquarters of the American Red Cross to determine what the technology needs are. The company has committed to donate up to 4,000 laptop computers, either from Intel itself or from its technology providers, specifically configured to meet the Red Cross’s needs. The equipment is first sent to a single Intel center in Austin, where it is worked on by volunteers and then shipped to various shelters. In a 24-hour period between Sept. 8 and 9, using 350 laptops, the Red Cross was able to find permanent shelter for 3,000 evacuees at the Houston Astrodome, Greeson says.

Many of the computers will be used in shelters, to help emergency workers establish case files for the evacuees to help them access aid and find permanent shelter. The company has also donated wireless access equipment and radio transmitters and has been working with Cisco Corp. and Skytel to ensure Internet access, Greeson says. The company has set up a tracking system to monitor the equipment. "We’re working with our partners to make sure that the donations are arriving when they say they’re going to arrive, and they’re going [where they should]. So we’re taking some ownership. ...We want to make sure that it’s deployed in the right way and it’s meeting the needs of the Red Cross and that the equipment is accounted for."

Intel chose to work with the Red Cross because it’s been designated as the lead organization coordinating the efforts of all the nation’s other nonprofits, but says its employees are free to give to any organization contributing to Katrina relief, and Intel will match that donation.

"There are many, many Intel employees that were affected by this disaster," Greeson says. "Clearly this is an unprecedented disaster in the United States and it’s something we wanted to respond to appropriately."

The company developed a relief effort for last year’s tsunami victims, and is using that experience to spearhead the Katrina relief efforts. An Intel team member is documenting the steps the company is taking in the relief effort, Greeson says, "So the next time something like this happens, God forbid, we’ll be more prepared."

Rolling it out

On Sept. 10, an intense group of about 50 volunteers from Aubuchon Hardware participated in a collaborative food and dry goods drive to collect non-perishable goods for the Katrina effort. Called Fitchburg’s Response, it was a team effort of the City of Fitchburg, the local chapter of the Salvation Army, and Aubuchon Hardware, which donated trucks, warehouse space and manpower to collect, package and load the goods onto a trailer truck. The daylong effort collected a trailerful of canned goods, can openers, diapers and baby formula worth between $35,000 and $40,000, estimates Marcus Moran, Aubuchon’s president and treasurer.

The confusion surrounding a large-scale disaster made it uncertain last week where the goods would be shipped. Earlier, it had been widely reported that 2,500 evacuees were expected to arrive in Bourne, to be sheltered at Camp Edwards, on the Otis Air Base. The plan was for Aubuchon to ship the goods to Camp Edwards. But far fewer evacuees actually showed up. Plan B was to ship the goods to the affected area.

"This food will eventually get down there," says Captain Brian Peabody, who heads the Fitchburg office of the Salvation Army. "What we have to wait upon is the OK from the southern areas to bring down the gifts in kind. Once that happens, that food will transport down to the south and it will be distributed among the food pantries in the south to give to the families affected by the hurricane. It will benefit people in New Orleans, but it will also benefit people in the widespread area."

Peabody says the local chapter is "making every effort" to coordinate with divisional headquarters to ensure that it is letting people know what goods need to be sent. Last week, the Salvation Army was trying to determine if any more evacuees would be arriving.

Because of the complexity of the situation, Peabody suggests that companies not undertake a unilateral effort to ship goods to the south - they should ally with a relief agency that knows where the need is. "I would not suggest you do it," he says. "[There are] a lot of grassroots efforts out there and people have the best intentions, but it can be a logistical nightmare when trucks just show up, unannounced. ... Then, people get upset because the agencies down there may say, no we can’t take that."

As long as the situation faced by agencies seeking to help evacuees is fluid, cash is the best thing to give, Peabody says. Meanwhile, the non-perishables collected for Fitchburg’s Response - and countless other efforts - will, eventually, get into the hands of those who need them. And that need, concur both Linda Russell and Peabody, is not going away any time soon.

Christina O’Neill can be reached at coneill@wbjournal.com