Notes From a Former Disaster Responder
What we need to change may surprise you.
I’m a former volunteer National Disaster Responder with the American Red Cross. I spent almost three weeks in heavily wooded, rural Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. I helped manage a shelter with about 70 clients.
I’d like to pass along some observations I’ve made about disasters. And if you read no further, read this:
If you don’t want to end up in a situation like people are facing in North Carolina, you need to ask your local governments—your mayors, city councils—what the plans are should a hurricane or other natural disaster hit your area.
A lot of you will find out there is no plan. The next step is to demand one, and you may need to organize on a grassroots level to do so.
However, at this level of government, you’ve got a chance to influence local politicians. It’s highly unlikely you’ll influence your member of Congress or your Senators.
Second: there is a ton of information about disaster preparedness online. My advice is always to get more bottled water than you think you need, and get a radio that doesn’t need to be plugged in. Make sure the batteries work and that you have plenty. If possible, have at least two weeks extra medication on hand, especially if you need it to stay alive. If you have enough supplies for two-three weeks should everything shut down, you’ll be in decent shape. You don’t need to go crazy.
If you’re wealthy, buy a satellite phone. Anyone who can afford one will be thankful for it.
The earth is getting hotter, the storms are getting worse. This is a fact, not a political statement, no matter who tells you otherwise. You don’t want to be caught unprepared.
I’ve been thinking about my experience during Katrina.
The pregnant girl keeps coming to mind. She just showed up at our shelter one day, over a week into my deployment. She arrived with her family. I remember her as silent. She was probably in shock, not to mention the dehydration.
When our nurse pinched the skin of her arm, she was so dehydrated the skin didn’t go back in shape. The pinch mark stayed up, as if the nurse had pinched clay.
She was sixteen years old, and her pregnancy was visible. She’d been trapped in what was left of her family’s home. So many trees had come down their driveway was impassable. They’d been living under a blue tarp since the storm hit.
I am bonded for life to the group of people I worked with during Katrina. It seems worth mentioning we had different political beliefs, and it didn’t matter. We had one united purpose, to help those affected.
We called ourselves the Sixth Ward Rogues. We had to go rogue to save lives, and we did.
Those that survive Helene, and those working to take care of survivors, are going to look at the rest of us with different eyes later. I know I looked at all of you differently, because I had information you did not:
How vulnerable we all are.
The punchline of the entire experience can be summed up by what my friend Denise said to her manager at home, when she called because of an emergency we experienced while trying to find our shelter.
“I don’t think you understand the situation,” Denise said, when the manager suggested we check into a hotel.
What hotel did she think could be open?
One reason it’s so hard to imagine what’s going on in places like Asheville, North Carolina, is we Americans are used to certain guarantees. We assume a lot.
We expect access to emergency services, running water, bottled water, electricity, gasoline, our phones, our chargers, the internet, food, 911, medical help, medical supplies, our medications, open pharmacies, open hospitals, open and stocked grocery stores, working ATMs, hot showers, and restaurants.
During Katrina, many people had none of the above. But even when just one or two of these everyday luxuries are taken away, a chain reaction develops.
If you run out of gas, you’re stranded. When you’re stranded, you’ll run out of drinkable water, food, and medicine. Without these, you get ill.
There’s no way to call for help. So you keep at it. You work to clear the trees from the driveway. But the chainsaw runs out of gas. It’s shocking how heavy a tree limb can be, let alone a whole tree. You remain stuck.
You run out of meds. You get sick. Your phone died long ago. You can’t call for help.
If through some miracle you’re able to dial 911, emergency services can’t get to you because the roads are destroyed. The hospital is under water. The grocery store is empty. The pharmacy is closed.
Time passes. You don’t understand why help doesn’t come.
You watch your sixteen-year-old daughter get paler. You wonder what you’ll do when she miscarries.
Eventually, neighbors arrive to help clear the driveway. Finally, you’re free.
You syphoned off the gas in your car to keep the chain saw going. Someone tells you where a shelter is.
Do you have enough gas to get there? You can only hope.
You arrive at the shelter. A nurse pinches your daughter’s arm. You watch her disinterested face, as her skin sticks up like clay.
The shelter gives you Gatorade and food. But they can’t tell you when FEMA assistance will arrive.
“Keep checking the web site for updates,” you’re told.
With what? Every electronic device you have is long dead. You might be able to charge your devices now, but there’s no internet service.
How do you get money?
How do you get food?
Do you still have health insurance if you didn’t pay the bill?
Do you still have a job if where you worked was wiped out?
You start getting angry. It’s understandable.
I went through a lot of training, passed tests, and worked on local disasters before I was deployed nationally. I had a working knowledge of how to run a shelter before I did so.
I consider what I learned during the almost three weeks I spent in Louisiana to be critical information. I wanted to impart it to everyone, especially those who could make desperately needed changes.
When I returned, I wrote a nine-page report for the Red Cross. But I also wanted politicians to know, as they’re the ones who make policy. I individually contacted every single sitting member of Congress and the Senate. I filled out over 530 individual contact forms on each representatives’ website.
It took two weeks, but I did it.
Ah, hubris.
I had recent, on-the-ground management experience with a major disaster and was recommended for promotion to a supervisor position. Of course politicians would want to hear what I had to report.
I received a bipartisan response. Exactly one Democrat and one Republican took the time to write me back.
We’re going to get more hurricanes. But if we don’t change our political system, nothing will change about disaster response. The way campaigns are run and disaster preparedness are linked.
Here’s the upshot: politicians can’t run a campaign on prevention. It’s spending tax dollars on something which hasn’t happened; although they’re protecting their constituency, they have nothing to show for it if a disaster doesn’t hit.
Gretchen Whitmer successfully ran for the governor of Michigan with this slogan:
When a politician has a new, smooth road to show for spent tax dollars, that’s good for her campaign. The voter gets a tangible payoff.
Disaster preparedness is not tangible.
When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, we were shamefully slow to respond. I doubt politicians wanted to allocate tax dollars to an island the rest of us don’t see, even if it was a U.S. territory.
Plus racism.
Many people died as a result.
I think members of Congress gamble. Unless they live somewhere like Florida, which receives the brunt of most storms, they just bank on the probability that their state won’t get hit.
Things have changed. That may no longer work for them. Again, facts: the earth is getting hotter, the storms are getting worse.
Trump’s lying about the government’s response to Helene. It’s beyond disgraceful. It’s savage, cruel, and inhumane.
Because now we are in a very, very dangerous situation with regard to the truth.
It’s a month away from the presidential election, and Trump is desperate. Democrats are now tasked with protecting Republican voters from their own leader.
After I came back from Katrina, my biggest concern was communications. I couldn’t believe that four years after 9/11, our emergency communications system was still awful.
When disinformation comes, it can kill people on the ground. Not just survivors of the storm, either. It can kill relief workers.
When I went down to Louisiana in my Red Cross gear, people stopped me at the airport and thanked me for what I was doing.
When I returned home three weeks later, I was told it was no longer safe for me to wear the gear. I left in scrubs.
Here’s an example of why:
From what we could best figure out at the time—a news station in Texas told its viewers that financial assistance had arrived and could be picked up at a Red Cross shelter.
This was true in Texas. But the station didn’t just broadcast to Texas. Neighboring states like Louisiana got the same information.
People desperate for funds got in their cars and used one of their most precious commodities, gasoline, to drive the ten or twenty of fifty miles to a shelter.
When they arrived at our shelter, we knew nothing—nothing—about payments.
We were not at fault. The clients were not at fault. It was just bad information.
But the people who’d wasted their gasoline to get some direly needed financial help were furious. Some of them may have suspected that we’d stolen their money. Things got a little scary for a while.
When I had to pick up prescriptions for our clients, I had to travel with an armed National Guardsman. It was too dangerous for me to drive myself because people were so desperate for medication.
To say a disaster is hard enough without intentional disinformation is an understatement. I’d beg this deeply immoral, callous man to stop, but I’d be wasting my breath.
All we can do is counter with the truth.
Please read up on disaster preparedness. No one should expect any help at all for at least 96 hours. As you can see from areas completely washed out by Helene, it may be two or three weeks before people see any assistance. For some, it might be longer.
If this is unacceptable to you, one solution might seem unlikely, but I heartily believe it to be true: campaign finance reform.
If it takes a billion dollars to run two presidential campaigns; if it takes close to a billion to run the congressional campaigns, then lawmakers will always be worrying about one thing: dollars with which to get elected.
They do not have time for your health and safety. Their job is to raise money. Members of Congress spend between 20-30 hours a week dialing for dollars. When we contribute to their campaigns, it’s like being taxed again.
This is insanity. We are going to either reform or implode, and it’s going to be a tough slog.
Disasters are unpredictable by nature.
Disaster responders and first responders are doing everything they can to get to people.
No disaster relief response is perfect, and neither is any organization.
It’s up to us to hold feet to the fire and change our very broken political system in Washington, because:
The earth is getting hotter, the storms are getting worse. If a politician you support doesn’t believe in climate change, you may just be contributing to your own demise.
Thanks so much.