Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief

A Grand Tour of the Made with Love Cafe

2006-05-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

I can't explain everything at the relief center in one sitting, so here's an overview instead!

Don't forget to visit www.emergencycommunities.org for updates on our non-profit organization.

The domes are much more than just a cafeteria. They are a place for community members and volunteers to meet and talk, to sit and have conversations, to listen to great New Orleans music, and to plan future projects.

EVERYBODY wants to work in the kitchen, the heart and soul of the Made With Love Cafe and Grill. I think the volunteers cook almost as much as they dance in the kitchen!

In no other place can you meet everybody who comes through the relief center, than dishing out severn-course meals on the serving line.

Our distribution center handles literally tons of clothes, toiletries, household goods, and packaged food. After all, you can't live in New Orleans without a decent wardrobe.

I worked with several amazing volunteers from Radio Response to put together an internet lab and FREE long distance phones so that residents can call family, find work, and do their FEMA paperwork, not to mention so that volunteers can call home (I have no excuse not to call :)

After starting out with basic first aid, we at the Rejuvenation Station now do everything from emergency medical assistance to serving herbal teas, blood pressure checks, massage therapy, health counseling, nutritional consulting, and medical referrals.

Hurricane relief is HARD WORK!

2006-04-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

Can you guess why I've been too busy to write? We received supplies from around the country. We built a kitchen that feeds 1500 meals per day, a distribution center that moves over 50 palettes of supplies per week to the residents of the Parish. We built a first aid and healing tent that offers health counseling and herbal tea. We grew from twenty-or-so founders to over 150 volunteers camping on site in tents, staffing the relief center and sending out crews to clean residents' houses. We set up a telecommunications center with high-speed wireless internet access and free long distance telephones. We have our own security and peacekeeping conflict resolution team to make sure the center is secure and that volunteers and residents alike are kind to one another. Don't forget laundry, dishes, showers, and handwashing stations...too busy to write?

I'm not too busy to write! I've been writing requests for donations, thank you letters, needs lists, first aid patient records, security incident reports, expendature proposals, water quality analysis, non-profit bylaws, and certificates of appreciation. But I do miss writing to my friends and family. Maybe I'll make some time to do that some more. Love y'all

P.S. Check www.emergencycommunities.org for updates from our non-profit organization.

Emergency Communities is born.

2005-12-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

The entire Parish is devastated, filled to the brim with toxic sediment, debris, rotting garbage, and crushed houses.
Because the Disaster Recovery Center located in the Wal-Mart parking lot across the street only offers a medical clinic, canned food, and water, the Meraux Foundation has donated the use of its parking lot for a relief center. We and a group of a dozen more volunteers from Waveland, Mississippi have come to start a relief kitchen under the new non-profit organization called Emergency Communities.

We have a 30-foot tent, ten pallets of food, two geodesic domes, a few propane burners, and basic kitchen equipment. Camp is the first priority. The cement parking lot transitions to gravel and then to muddy grass before the treeline adjacent to a slimy sewage canal. Smoke from several fires and the oil refinery pours over the area, making my eyes water and head ache. We set up our tents on pallets because the rain could flood into the tents, and the sediment is contaminated with floodwater residue.

By December 4th, we are twenty strong, and meet together daily to strategize about how we can set up a relief center, first taking care of our own needs (warmth, water, food, warmth, and warmth) then providing food and clothes to the residents who are trickling back into the area. I have never felt so satisfied after working a 16 hour day, seven days a week (of course, I've done much more enjoyable work than disaster relief) But the dedicated volunteers here have courage and inspiration that more than rubs off.

St. Bernard Parish was hit hard.

2005-12-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

St. Bernard Parish, a county that extends to the southeast of New Orleans, was badly hit by the storm. Not only did it suffer the high winds near the eye, but the storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico crashed over the area with 30+ foot waves. Also, a large part of the Parish was underwater for several days when the levees broke. Almost every house in the Parish is completely uninhabitable, filled with toxic mud, sediment, and debris.

United Peace Relief, Slidell, Mississippi

2005-11-30T21:36:00.000-08:00

Women from Ukiah, CA established United Peace Relief to assist residents of Slidell, LA in gutting their houses after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Lynn Meadows and several other volunteers quickly put together fund-raisers and organized a center from which volunteers could camp, eat, muck houses, and clean up afterwards with hot showers. I only stayed a week in late November, but in that time, I helped set up a satellite internet system, and maintained their generator-battery bank-inverter power systems. Also, I met Meg Perry, an amazingly energetic volunteer from Portland, Maine, who came down to Slidell in a vegetable-oil powered diesel bus with a whole crew of volunteers. I hold Meg's memory in the highest regard, as she was killed in a bus accident soon after. Her exuberance for life and giving of herself to help inspire other volunteers and assist the victims of the hurricane is a passion that I will never forget. Thanks, Meg!

The Waveland Cafe

2005-11-29T20:58:00.000-08:00

The Waveland Cafe started in a parking lot filled with debris in Waveland, Mississippi. The founders drove through streets barely cleared from the mud and debris of Hurricane Katrina. David, a resident of Wisconsin, met relief organizers in the area, and along with several others decided that they would put together a kitchen and relief center. Months later, with support from all over the country and a diverse group of volunteers of all ages, political beliefs, and backgrounds, the Waveland Cafe was in full swing. Fresh organic dairy products were donated by Organic Valley Coop, families sent clothes, and donors provided tents and loads of kitchen equipment. Not just three hot meals a day, a medical clinic, and distribution of clothes, toiletries, bedding, and ice, the center is a place for community members to meet their neighbors again, finding loved ones that may have been lost during the storm.

Hurricane Damage at Waveland, Mississippi

2005-11-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart is open again. Cars fill the main road that was empty for weeks after the storm. Yet, not all is settled here in Waveland, almost three months after Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast and devastated people's lives. Many residents have no place to stay.

The 100 mph wind and thirty-foot waves wiped out the first three miles of beachfront such hardly any debris litter the ground; it was all carried away by the gale. Foundations stand completly empty, the house they once supported nowhere to be found. Further back from the beach, pine trees have crushed houses, spilling their contents onto the street now littered with clothes, car parts, bottles, broken glass, and the contents of everyone's lives. Only a few houses are still inhabitable here in Waveland. If the roof and walls are intact, the entire interior was filled with muddy water, toxic from a cocktail of household chemicals and flooding from the chemical plant down the street. While some families camp in their front yards, others commute from hotels to work on gutting the interior of their houses and dragging debris to the street.

The mobile home trailers from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration have just begun to arrive as crews work to add plumbing and electricity. Several residents that I spoke to, however, have been finding the application process very difficult, and don't yet have a trailer. FEMA's office is only open during business hours, but many residents spend all the daylight hours cleaning what used to be their house, and therefore have trouble meeting with officials. I talked to one man who had a meeting scheduled with a FEMA inspector for Nov 20, fully seven weeks after the storm crushed his home.

On the other hand, insurance has been both a blessing and a stumbling block for residents of Waveland. A local geological engineer told me that his federal flood insurance covered every bit of the value of his home, but that the wind damage claim was at a stall. A retired couple told me that their insurance company has continued to delay processing their claim - they haven't seen a dime. Instead, they are eating up the little saving they had before the storm. Furthermore, their mortgage company had defered their mortgage payments for three months. But instead of adding the payments to the end of their payment schedule, all three months are due December 1st. I was incredulous and asked other residents about their mortgages. Tragically, everyone is under the same deadline: three months of mortgage payments are due Dec 1st, and nobody know what they will do. That date is also the last day of free motel rooms for hurricane victims.

Next article: The Waveland Cafe and Relief Center

Packing for the Gulf Coast

2005-11-16T21:57:00.000-08:00

Laundry. Organizing my bills. Packing my bags. Starting a weblog. These are things that the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Rita did not have time to do before they either evacuated or swam for their lives. And now I'm going to help them put together the broken pieces of their families, their homes, and their livelihoods.

Leah, my girlfriend, and I are flying to Gulfport, Mississippi on Monday to volunteer with several grassroots organizations who are feeding, housing, and otherwise supporting hurricane survivors. Plenty International, Common Ground, and Veterans for Peace are just a few of the groups who are filling in gaps where the Red Cross falls short.

I'm leaving a good job, a nice house, and plenty of friends to go help. Sometimes I wonder why. Yet I feel that I can't appreciate a comfortable life without knowing what it's like to lose that comfort.