Hurricane Relief - What Would You Bring? 534
andyring asks: "In a few weeks, I will be going with a group from my church down to some of the hardest-hit areas in Louisiana and Mississippi to volunteer in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. We will be there six days, and have 10 people going so far. At this point, I don't know much more than we'll be in either Slidell, La. on the northeast shore of Lake Ponchartrain, or Pass Christian, Miss., right on the Gulf Coast near Gulfport/Biloxi. Not knowing what we'll be faced with, and having somewhat limited room for supplies, tools and equipment (probably a U-haul trailer), what would you bring on a journey such as this? Any Slashdot readers between Lincoln, Neb. and the New Orleans area interested in contributing to our effort, such as donations of equipment/supplies/tools/etc?"
Re:take a brick wall, baseball bat (Score:5, Interesting)
One of them told us, "People don't need Internet and email. They need money!" Yes, they need money but they also need to find their family too! You have no idea how helpful the Internet was to those people in locating each other, even though most were computer illiterate and had us operate the computers. Many thanks to Yahoo and MSNBC. The MSNBC site was extremely helpful the first night they got to Dallas because the Red Cross site wasn't very easy to use. It was a general disaster victim registration site that was slow and required your mother and father's names. Then by other organization's good intentions, we ended up with multiple sites that we need to search to find people. Finally Yahoo stepped in and created a web search that would search all the major ones.
Anyways, to the original poster, if you have no experience don't go! Donate material and help collect them but you won't be much help.
Ask the Red Cross and anything. (Score:2, Interesting)
Bullshit. It sounds good at first but it breaks down when you think about it. As long as they bring food and shelter for themselves everything they do is appreciated and useful. Training is better, co-ordinated trained people are best but no one is useless. Turning people away for lack of paper work "certs" is one of the worst things that happened [64.233.187.104]. All help is appreciated by decent people and there are plenty of them in New Orleans, Slidel and on the Gulf Coast.
Contact The Red Cross. [redcross.org]
The Red Cross know what it's doing, unlike FEMA or that horrible woman who did not know she was in command of the National Guard and delayed aid for days without reason. Contact Them [redcross.org] and join an organized response. They might even tell you what to fill your truck with.
Now, let's see what people in New Orleans are saying. "Please open a Wal Mart [nola.com]"! Family members report that the one grocery store open smells like the fridges they taped shut and put on the curb. I think they can use almost ANYTHING but beer is in short supply.
Your backs will also be useful. There's plenty of cleaning up you can offer people who are unable to do such things on their own. They will be happy to see you.
Of course, there are some real jerks there too. I've heard plenty of stories about people who not only expected heroism on their behalf, they expressed anger to those helping them. I have it first hand that, as in other urban dissasters, police and firemen were shot at while putting out fires. Some people have such a strong sense of entitlement they are angry they were not rescued earlier and have been asking questions like, "Where's my appartment?" for weeks. Don't let them deter you.
Good luck, you are going to need it.
Re:Boots not shoes. (Score:5, Interesting)
There has been some talk of switching to either steel stud/joist construction or ICF (Insulated Concrete Forms) for most Habitat affiliates, but both take a lot of planning and some specialized tools. Also both cost more than wood frame and therefore are rather sticky points for budgeting. The Habitat affiliate I work for has recently done two houses partially in ICF and it works very very well, however we had to raise the final cost of the house by $5,000 and I believe we're eating another $3,000 or so of cost just for using those forms. I sincerely hope they come down in price very soon because they're VERY stable and relatively easy to work with. But I'm babbling...
In short, we'd love to build something heavier, but unless someone ponies up the money for it and also sends the expertise to work with the stronger materials, we're stuck doing pine stick-built houses...
Re:The only thing you need... (Score:1, Interesting)
I purposely read the comments for this article to see how long it would take somebody to make this comment, since he said he was going with a church.
Don't come (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm in New Orleans. I've been here since the hurricane. I've been rescuing people and pets. What we do not need at this time are people coming into the city clogging things up. Many of the aid stations have shut down because, contrary to what the media may be reporting, the outskirts of the city are slowly coming back into operation. So there's not much you can really do except get in the way.
Yea, you can come down and offer to help people with manual labor, but the media has scared the crap out of everybody with all the overblown looter/sniper reporting, you're likely to find people more suspicious than thankful.
I wish it weren't so, but that's the way it is.
If you want to help, don't vote Republican any more. Honestly, this will do more to help people in the area than anything else you can do. The current administration is giving away most of the federal aid to a small number of politically-connected corporations friendly with the current administration. At least the democrats put more emphasis on middle class and education.
We're screwed. I don't even want to talk about it honestly. I'm totally burned out from what I've had to go through.
Perspective from a firefighter. (Score:2, Interesting)
All the normal stuff you travel with plus:
an LED headlamp, the battery charger, and a bunch of regular alkaline batteries to keep it powered.
An assortment of gloves and some ear plugs.
A waterproof bag http://www.ortliebusa.com/ [ortliebusa.com] for my gear.
All the usual travel stuff (small first aid kit, sewing kit, etc.)
A powerstrip so that I can be a good citizen when I need to plug in a charger
Re:Boots not shoes. (Score:4, Interesting)
The technology relief stuff isn't just a joke (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Don't come (Score:3, Interesting)
Louisiana has been dominated by the Democratic party for generations and the disastrous incompetence was a direct result of that one-party rule. The best thing a voter could do for Louisiana would be to not vote for a single incumbent in the next state and local elections. FEMA's website (before this hurricane season) explicitly instructs people to not expect help from them for several days (7+) after a disaster. A 2000 person agency simply cannot provide first response services. FEMA was formed for long-term cleanup and this myth of first-response failure is entirely a case of party politics.