Katrina Disaster Relief

The inept disaster recovery response to Hurricane Katrina began four days after the storm, with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) preparations that ranged from logistical supply deployments to a mortuary team with refrigerated trucks.

The Department of Homeland Security issued these key statistics as of 10 AM on September 3 2005: [1]

• Lives Saved -- 11,500
• Citizens Evacuated -- 25,000
• Water distributed by FEMA -- 6.7 million liters
• MREs distributed by FEMA -- 1.9 million
• U.S. Coast Guard -- 4,000
• National Guard -- 22,000
• FEMA responders -- 5,000

Relief Efforts

• American Red Cross

American Red Cross personel attenting refugees in the Reliant Astrodome.

The American Red Cross is mobilizing the largest relief effort in its 124-year history to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Local Chapters across the nation are actively mobilising thousands of volunteers for immediate deployment to the disaster region. More than 250 Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) are sent to provide food and water to victims [2].

Red Cross has also set up more than 200 shelters in the states of Texas, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, and these have already received more than 75,000 people [3]. A number of shelters have already reached capacity, and the number of refugees is expected to increase further [4].

The American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund is collecting donations from the public for the relief effort. By September 5, they had raised $409 million dollars in cash and pledges, surpassing the rate of donation for the Asian tsunami and September 11.

The American Red Cross has not been allowed by Louisiana to provide aid within the city of New Orleans.[5]

• The Catholic Charities activated a disaster response plan; areas outside of the disaster are providing refugee relief, and agencies located in or nearby are mobilizing to assist the needy.

• Operation Blessing began organizing to ship food and relief supplies into the affected areas, as it has done in disaster zones around the world before. America's Second Harvest, a food bank that operates in many communities, began coordinating efforts to ship food donations to coastal areas.

• The Salvation Army immediately turned its efforts to providing food and shelter where it could.

• Mercy Corps is accepting donations and sending a team of emergency relief experts to the Gulf region to offer financial and technical assistance for immediate and longer-term relief and recovery efforts.

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is also responding to the devastation. While emergency services and rescue personnel work on relief operations in New Orleans, they are at high risk of disease.

Other nonprofit non-governmental organizations that are helping like the ASPCA are listed on Network for Good's website. The Family Internationalhas mobilized Christian Counsellors to provide spiritual healing, comfort and encouragement to the evacuees throughout Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi and have launched Katrina Relief Home to share the needs of the victims of this disaster. The Scientology Volunteer Ministers headed by a medical doctor went to New Orleans with enough tetanus shots to inoculate 100 police, National Guard and other rescue workers at risk due to the unsanitary conditions [6].

The KatrinaHelp wiki is a grassroots effort collating all refugee records from a variety of sites (including Craigslist, et al) in PFIF format; they offer an elegant search interface to their database.

Awake In America, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia, launched "Operation Restore CPAP" to get equipment to treat sleep apnea in victims of Hurricane Katrina who had been previously diagnosed with sleep apnea.

Scam artist responses

In the wake of a large outpouring of support, many scam artists took advantage of the public's willingness to provide money and other resources to victims of the hurricane. The FBI reported [7] that over 500 illegitimate websites were created to collect money that ostensibly would go to hurricane victims. Spam emails were then circulated to attract donations.

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Modified from Wikipedia's article on Hurricane Katrina disaster relief