Hurricane Relief - What Would You Bring?

andyring asks: "In a few weeks, I will be going with a group from my church down to some of the hardest-hit areas in Louisiana and Mississippi to volunteer in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. We will be there six days, and have 10 people going so far. At this point, I don't know much more than we'll be in either Slidell, La. on the northeast shore of Lake Ponchartrain, or Pass Christian, Miss., right on the Gulf Coast near Gulfport/Biloxi. Not knowing what we'll be faced with, and having somewhat limited room for supplies, tools and equipment (probably a U-haul trailer), what would you bring on a journey such as this? Any Slashdot readers between Lincoln, Neb. and the New Orleans area interested in contributing to our effort, such as donations of equipment/supplies/tools/etc?"

Comments

what would you bring?

[wingman358]

I'd check out the Red Cross website or something. Or perhaps you could check this out, some good ideas there.

take a brick wall, baseball bat

[puzzled]

    You'll need a brick wall to bang your head and a baseball bat might help with federal officials. I volunteered, I rounded up some donated equipment for wireless ISPs who flocked to the area, and they totally got the run around from FEMA. A group of twenty five traveled to Kelly AFB on their own dime to lay in a phone system for evacuees and SBC had done the deed two days before they got there. FEMA coordination indeed!

    If you're doing bricks & mortar stuff you'll probably get a lot further, but the technology relief stuff is just a joke - its going to be total pork barrel for the Haliburton sized companies of the world.

    Good luck!

Re:Boots not shoes.

[twilightzero]

From the perspective of someone who currently works for Habitat for Humanity and has a lot of experience on this sort of thing, I would highly reccommend steel toed boots. The hard hat I tend to be a bit less picky on, as they'll only really help you in places you don't have to bend over much and will be ducking under things. I'd say throw a few in just in case but usually I just go with a regular cotton bucket hat.

As far as tools and things, here's the (non-definitive) list that I would reccommend:
-Shovels (1 per person, round point)
-Crow bars/wrecking bars
-Breaker bar (looks like a giant steel pole with a point or chisel on the end)
-Hammers (lots)
-Nails (several boxes each of 8 penny, 16 penny, 16 penny duplex)
-Good cordless tools with plenty of backup batteries (I'd reccommend at least 18 volt if you can get them, get enough batteries that you can charge at night)
-Generator if someone owns one already (very handy)
-Wheelbarrow or two
-Sawzall or equivalent tool of destruction (2 if you can get them)
-LOTS of good leather gloves (go for full leather, do not get fabric-backed or cotton jersey. They just won't stand up. You can get decent leather gloves here at $22/dozen)
-LARGE water cooler - I'd reccommend a good Rubbermaid or Igloo jobsite cooler with associated plastic/foam glasses

That's a good start for a list. If you want more advice drop me an email with SLASHDOT in the title at the email addy on my account. I've done quite a lot of this sort of work before. Wish I could come with you but I'm stuck here :\

Re:Additional Things you might need

[jdbear]

I just got back from a week working in the Swingster Distribution Center in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. 16 of us went down and worked in the center helping them to receive, organize and distribute supplies to the victims of the Hurricanes.

I learned several things while I was there. It is hot, and the work is hard. You simply can't drink enough water. By the end of the day, we would be sucking down a quart of water every 15 minutes, and didn't stop until a couple of hours after the "work day" was over. Keep this in mind.

The Gulf Coast region, with the exception of New Orleans, is in pretty good shape as far as public services are concerned. We were a half mile from the ocean, and were working in a sound building with power and water. I actually didn't make it into the building very often, mostly working in the yard unloading trucks or moving supplies.

Just about everything that was actually on the coast was destroyed. Those houses that were not completely devistated were damaged severely and will need massive reconstruction efforts. The houses just a little distance away from the coast, a quarter to a half of a mile or more, were not destroyed, but still suffered some sort of damage. The wind did some damage to roofs, knocked down trees, fences, etc, but the biggest problem was still water damamge.

Several of my crew left the distribution center one day to help an elderly gentleman "muck out" his house. He was 80 years old, mostly blind (he had 15% vision) and was trying to clean up/repair his home by himself with no tools and no power. He'd sent his wife away because the house wasn't safe to be in.

The houses have water damage. This means that everything that was under 5 feet off the ground was soaked in water, and is now molding and rotting. It has to be torn out and carried to the street for the trash crews to pick up. Furnature, clothing, electronics, bedding, linens, pillows, appliences, TV's,... you name it, it's ruined.

The biggest job is just removing the trash. Once it's gone, the house has to be cleaned with bleach or some other mold inhibitor. Dishwashing gloves come in handy. Once cleaned, it can be rebuilt, and that is a fairly straightforward construction job. Any damaged framing must be replaced, drywall goes up, flooring goes down, trim and moulding goes in.

There is also "yard work" that needs to be done. Some homes have already fixed this problem. They look like nothing has happened. It has been several weeks, so if their house was not too badly damaged, they had time to fix the yard up. Others look like a war zone. There is debris of every imaginable kind there. I could show you some pictures. I found a microwave oven with a crab living in it, next to a torn street sign. 10 feet over, there was a Grand Piano laying upside down.

There are crews that move through the streets with large grapplers and trucks to haul away the debris. They take it to a central point where it's piled up. The piles are HUGE. While I was there, I ate meals along side crews that did nothing but cut up downed limbs with chainsaws. Other crews then moved the cut wood to the street. It's a massive effort.

That they need most is people willing to go and work, and not be picky about the job that needs to be done. I am not a manual labor kind of guy. I'm a computer geek and work in Infrastructure Problem Management, which means that I sit at a desk all day and talk on the phone for a living. Still, the job that they needed at the time involved moving large numbers of heavy boxes. That's what I did.

When you go to help, just do the job that needs doing. Don't worry too much about having everything that you need with you. There are TONS of supplies there. They may not be easy to find, but they are there. People have been shipping tools and supplies to the Gulf Coast area for weeks. What we need are PEOPLE getting involved.

David