Five years after a hurricane season that wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast, the American Red Cross has released “Bringing Help, Bringing Hope,” a report that details the Red Cross response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the ensuing years of recovery for the survivors.
“Five years ago, the American public responded to Katrina with unprecedented generosity,” said Russ Paulsen, executive director of the Hurricane Recovery Program at the Red Cross. “Looking back, I think they can be proud of what their contributions accomplished.”
The Red Cross gave 1.4 million families—approximately 4.5 million people—emergency financial assistance in response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, which was 19 times more than the previous record. Donors gave the organization a total of $2.2 billion for people affected by the storms, which helped the Red Cross provide:
- Shelter for survivors across 31 states and the District of Columbia
- Hot meals and snacks
- Financial assistance for survivors to purchase groceries, clothing, diapers and other basic needs; and money for people to return home, make home repairs and get back to work
- Physical and mental health services to help them cope with stress and ease the trauma
- Tools to help survivors chart a path to recovery
- Disaster preparedness training so people know the steps to take to protect themselves and their families
Mary Novell, Human Resources Officer, recalls at the time of Katrina walking into her office at the West Los Angeles chapter then located on Wilshire and there was no room to move. The hallways were full of Red Cross staff and volunteers, people who had evacuated and people who wanted to help however they could.
“This is one of the events of my life that I will never forget. There was so much good will and offering from the community,” said Novell. The chapter immediately set to conducting a pre-service orientation and two class training for every spontaneous volunteer who was deployed. The chapter sent numerous volunteers to states across the affected region.
Los Angeles also served as a major evacuee point, receiving more than 1,000 individuals seeking relocation.
“Never before had the Red Cross served so many people after a disaster, and never before had so many people come forward to help,” said Paulsen. “But we learned that there are some disasters that are so big that no agency—government or nonprofit—can do it all. We learned that everyone needs to play a part.”
One critical lesson was that the Red Cross needed to increase its capacity to respond and build partnerships with other organizations that can help in large events. As a result, the Red Cross established a nationwide warehouse system and pre-positioned more than two Katrinas’ worth of disaster relief supplies in warehouses—enough to support 350,000 shelter residents. It also enhanced local, state and national-level planning efforts to plan for how it would respond to large-scale disasters and created new partnerships with national, state and local groups to help ensure that all segments of the community are served after a disaster.
In the past five years, the Red Cross expanded the number of trained disaster volunteers from 25,000 to nearly 95,000, including nearly 50,000 available to travel to disasters around the country. The organization also created tools for the public to use during a disaster, including a National Shelter System accessible online, and a “Safe and Well” website to reconnect families during disasters, including through social media.
“The hurricanes of 2005 tested us all,” said Paulsen. “Although we’re on better footing than we were five years ago, every individual and community has to be on board in order for our country to be more disaster-ready. There is much more that we as a nation can do. Everyone—government, businesses, non-profits and the faith community—needs to work together to have better prepared communities,” said Paulsen.
The report, “Bringing Help, Bringing Hope: The American Red Cross Response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma,” is available at http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/pdf/corppubs/Katrina5Year.pdf.
