September 05, 2008
Relief Groups Expect Weeks of Continued Needs in Louisiana, Even as Other Storms Threaten
By Caroline Preston
Southern Louisiana
Relief workers started giving out food and readying shelters on Thursday as people began to return to this region, which sustained Hurricane Gustav’s most extensive damage.
Some areas have been told not to expect electricity to be restored to until October.
Charity workers in Acadiana, Greater New Orleans, and other areas here are undertaking their relief work in the shadow of other storms. As they handed out meals to the few evacuees who had returned by Thursday, some said they are worried about how they’ll prepare for Hurricane Ike while still providing relief to people affected by Gustav.
They also wondered how they might convince residents to leave, if necessary, for future storms.
On Thursday, police were still turning residents away from the city of Houma, which was hit directly by Gustav’s winds. In a brown camper parked in an empty lot near the town center, a Salvation Army official discussed with a Red Cross representative and volunteers from the Southern Baptist Convention how they would coordinate efforts to feed an influx of evacuees.
Larry Freeze, a computer programmer who was leading the North Carolina Baptist Convention’s volunteer response to the storm, walked around a massive truck his group had driven up for the storm. Wearing a bright yellow t-shirt emblazoned with his organization’s logo, Mr. Freeze explained that the truck was prepared to feed 30,000 meals a day.
Many Challenges
Some local aid workers said they were worried about how residents would cope once they were allowed home.
“When people return, they’re not going to have gas, hospitals, and electricity,” said Robert Gorman, executive director of Catholic Social Services for the diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, an affiliate of Catholic Charities USA. “Many people spent all their money on hotels and when they get back, I wonder how they’ll pay for groceries.”
He was also concerned about Houma’s sizeable population of migrant workers, some of whom are undocumented.
“Even though ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] said it wouldn’t do arrests during the storm, I don’t think they know that,” he said.
‘We Can’t Complain’
Residents of nearby Morgan City had been allowed to return as of Wednesday. A long line of cars and trucks had formed in front of the city’s auditorium, where FEMA workers were handing out ice and ready-made meals from the back of a truck.
People also trickled in on foot to a Salvation Army feeding station set up nearby. On Wednesday, the truck served 700 meals.
Residents said they were glad to be back, even to homes that had been damaged and would be without electricity for weeks.
“We got back on Wednesday and there’s no roof and no electricity,” said Elizabeth Ventress as she waited outside the Salvation Army truck for a styrofoam container of chili. “But thank God we’re alive. We can’t complain.”
Watching the line of cars slowly snake past the FEMA truck, Ethan Frizzell, area commander for the Greater New Orleans Command of the Salvation Army, said he was pleased so far with the federal government’s response to Hurricane Gustav.
“We got here early – on Tuesday — and they were already here,” he said. “They’ve shown up very well.”
‘A Difficult Post’
Far fewer signs of life were visible deeper south, where Gustav’s winds had snapped electricity poles in half and buried a few roads and cars under water.
Nearly every house was still boarded up on Thursday, some with planks that had messages of “Go Away, Gustav,” painted on them.
Volunteers from the American Red Cross and AmeriCorps had arrived in the town of Grand Isle on Thursday morning to find the community center damaged by flooding. They began cleaning it in preparation to serve as a shelter for returning residents, although a lack of phone service was hampering their ability to speak with Red Cross officials elsewhere.
“We asked for a difficult post,” said Keith Culhane, a Red Cross volunteer from Los Angeles. “I think we got it.”
Even as they cleaned up wreckage from Gustav and prepared for residents’ return, aid workers said they were concerned about how storms looming father out over the Atlantic Ocean might influence their disaster response.
Mr. Frizzell, of the Salvation Army, said he might need to find churches, schools, and other buildings to serve as feeding centers so he could free up the mobile feeding stations in case of another disaster.
“We would need to make sure generators were ready, our food supplies were restocked, and our personnel had a day or at least a half-day of rest,” he said from the driver’s seat of a white Salvation Army truck.
Later, outside a grocery store in Grand Isle, he and colleagues unpacked boxes of chili, bottles of water, and napkins from the back of the truck. In addition to supplies, the truck carried an extra tank of 100 gallons of gasoline – a lesson learned from Hurricane Katrina, when cars had piled up for miles outside the few workable gas stations.
Donation Tallies Low
Hurricanes Ike and Josephine were also playing a role in the Salvation Army’s approach to fund raising. The group had raised about $30,000 online for Gustav relief efforts by Thursday, compared with $1.6-million in the first four days after Hurricane Katrina.
That fell short of the charity’s costs. George Hood, national community relations secretary, said the group had spent $1-million to prepare for the storm and was likely spending between $2-million and $3-million per day on relief efforts.
While Mr. Hood said he was preparing to send out a direct-mail appeal to existing donors, he wasn’t yet approaching corporations and foundations.
“We want to respond but we don’t want to push the panic button,” he said. “We won’t do much more until we deal with the prospects of Ike and Josephine.”
Mr. Frizzell said he didn’t expect the storm to result in large donations. “This will not induce national fund raising,” he said. “But the people we serve remember which agencies were here and they remember us kindly.”
Mr. Gorman of Catholic Social Services, a local affiliate of Catholic Charities USA, said he worried that life for his charity’s workers and clients wouldn’t return to normal for some time.
“We’re leaving our shutters on our windows and telling our employees to stay put if you’re in a safe place,” he said. “There’s another storm out there and we just hope it’s not the one-two punch of Katrina and Rita.”
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