The largest displacement of Americans since the Civil War reverberated across the country from its starting point in New Orleans yesterday, as more than half a million people uprooted by Hurricane Katrina sought shelter, sustenance and the semblance of new lives. [Given that the population of New Orleans alone is more than 400,000, that estimate of numbers affected is clearly conservative.]
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Katrina has scattered more than twice as many people as the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and unmoored more people in a few days than fled the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. Estimating from census data, about 150,000 of the displaced lived below the poverty line even before they lost everything. Far more than 50,000 of them are past retirement age.
Emergency housing, which will need to be available for months at least, is the most urgent need. Even temporary housing in the form of camps or barracks will take time to assemble, given the sheer numbers of homeless the storm has produced. Undoubtedly a reflection of many concerned citizens in the surrounding areas already opening their homes to refugees, the Moveon.org housing site has more offers on its bulletin board from people as far away as New York and Washington, DC than from a 350-mile radius of New Orleans. As hurricanehousing.org notes, those who take up offers of housing in far-away regions will also need part-time job opportunities to pick up a bit of spare cash to get by.
UPDATE: Also see the dedicated site katrinahousing.org. As I noted on a related post at Crooked Timber:
Sure, someone has to have access to the internet to be able to take advantage of these offers. But they don’t have to be hooked up directly – e.g. a relative who lives in your area and has internet access could be hunting for a place for them and could link you up. The people looking via the internet are also unlikely to be the ones who are in absolutely dire straits. But if volunteers who open their homes can take some of the pressure off, it will make it easier for the Red Cross or the Houston Astrodome to do their jobs.
The webservices aren’t intermediaries. You’re on your own to work out the details with anyone who responds to your offer. And no guarantees on who you’re dealing with. So use common sense.
Anyway, the internet can help make distributed solutions a good deal more powerful.
All over the country, the Red Cross is receiving a huge influx of new volunteers who need to be trained and, over the coming months, assigned. Though the burden of preparing volunteers is large, the Red Cross needs a full pipeline of people who can be sent for weeks at a time to help during the coming months. (h/t Gary Farber)
The Red Cross plans to mobilize 9,000 volunteers for minimum two-week deployments to states affected by the hurricane in the coming weeks. They'll staff shelters and help get food and water to victims.And volunteers also have to be able to lift 50 pounds.
While television images of houses submerged in roof-high waters, crowded shelters and hungry children may compel people to volunteer, veteran relief workers are also trying to figure out who is best for the job. Seasoned workers warn that the job takes an emotional toll.
During the Connecticut class, instructor Anouchka Bayard Blanchard told volunteers to think long and hard before signing up. There are other ways to help if volunteers aren't in good health, think they can't do it or have serious concerns, she said.
"Really what we're trying to get through is the reality of the expectation. Everybody wants to help and that's great, but especially in this situation, the hardship is so grand," said Bayard Blanchard, who has been deployed to Third World countries.
Volunteers need to be ready to deploy with 24 hours notice. Those being trained now could leave as early as next week, or as late as next year. Once they're called, they can bring a backpack or duffel bag packed with essentials such as flashlights and a sleeping bag. They will likely sleep on the floor of shelters with victims. There will be limited food and water, heat and humidity, no electricity and often, poor communication systems.
Before leaving, volunteers must go through a background check, be certified by a doctor as being in good health. Tetanus and Hepatitis A shots are recommended.
It's not just the major issues of food, shelter and essential health care. People from every region of the country are starting to think how to absorb some of the refugees so they can get on with something approaching their lives again. Take the relatively small problem of all the universities in the area being forced to close, almost certainly for at least the coming semester. Brad DeLong today reported that UC Berkeley is trying to figure out whether they can absorb some 10% of Tulane for the fall semester. Tim Burke was speculating earlier on universities opening their doors to students just about ready to start school. And Glenn Reynolds has already noted that Univ of of Tennessee will be taking in 50 law students from Tulane and Loyola. UPDATE: Chronicle of Higher Education has a forum dealing with all sorts of Katrina's university and college issues. There are already offers from insitutions in other regions pouring in to help displaced students and faculty. Also the Chronicle has a Katrina Update blog.
And then there are the mundane but critical problems that need some creative solutions, such as linking hundreds of thousands of people with their mail -- and their pension checks, as Dave Schuler has figured out.
This is simply not "disaster as usual." We'll need lots more creativity coming from every sector of American society -- not just government or the traditional charities -- to help people find their ways back to normalcy.
The first afoe European weblog awards