How to Help Disaster Victims the Most

There is nothing so frustrating as being willing to help and not being able to know what to do or where to go.

Here are some tips on how to help when help is most needed.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Be prepared personally.
   
   Always be sure that you and your family are safe and secure first.
   
   Have a Basic Emergency Safety Kit prepared for yourself and for your family. You can buy such kits over the internet, or prepare your own.
   
   The Department of Homeland Security has these suggestions for your kit.
   http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/index.html

2. Before the disaster, take CRP and First Aid training.
   
   Sources for this training are plentiful. Check with the American Red Cross, your park district, hospitals, or your fire department.

3. The American Red Cross initially provides water, food, shelter, and other immediate necessities to disaster victims. They are
   
   They normally turn outside untrained volunteers away at the time of a disaster. Therefore, the best way to volunteer for the Red Cross is to sign up prior to a disaster, get training (theirs is excellent and thorough), and be willing to be deployed at the time of an emergency.
   
   They are not government run, and their funding is totally by donation.
   
   Therefore, before the disaster, get disaster service training! Joining the American Red Cross Disaster Services team prepares you in many ways, and makes you instantly desirable as a volunteer with other service providers as well.
   
   They will make use of your specific trades and gifts to optimize the way you can help. You will be able to respond to many local disasters which will give you much needed experience as well.
   
   If you want to help other than by direct volunteering, the American Red Cross takes cash donations. They do not accept food or clothing donations because the cost of receiving, sorting, and transporting these goods can be well in excess of what can be purchased closer. Also, prior to the disaster, it is not always evident what goods will be required for the region, thus necessitating large inventory storage costs.

4. If the disaster is local to you, secure your family and insure your own safety.
   
   Take whatever safety equipment that is available with you including tools, gloves, etc.
   
   Priorities are:
   Personal safety
   Immediate medical attention to anyone requiring it
   Any physical steps that can be taken to lessen impact of the disaster. (i.e. flood control - utilization of sand bags, etc)
   Drinking Water
   Shelter
   Food
   Property security
   Search and recovery

5. Deployment to a Disaster Area:
   
   Phone First! If you are not local to the disaster (and this is the intent of this article)and you want to be on site, find a place to help BEFORE leaving for the area.
   
   If you are an American Red Cross volunteer, you know you need to contact your center and express your availability. They will then deploy you where help is most needed.
   
   As a private citizen wanting to help, call local authorities. Try the mayor's office before the police or fire department. They need their lines for emergency response.
   
   Call United Way.
   Call the Salvation Army.
   Call the local union.
   Call local churches.
   Call the local lodges.
   
   These are the groups that tend to rally their members immediately, and will be happy to have additional help.

6. What to Bring if you deploy to the area:
   
   Be self sufficient. Bring your own drinking water and your own food. Enough for your entire stay. Bring your own clean clothing, tent, generator, fuel, gloves, boots, tools, and whatever else makes sense.
   
   Remember the area most likely will not have power, which also means gas stations may not be able to operate.
   
   Bring paper plates and plastic utensils and lots of garbage bags. Bring your own bedding.
   
   Bring batteries, a radio, a first aid kit, and mosquito spray. Bring your cell phone and a means to charge it, but understand it may not work. Bring a solar charger if possible.
   
   Bring cash. You may not be able to use a credit card.
   
   Bring a buddy.
   
   
   Expect the harshest of conditions, and be pleased whenever they are not as harsh as you thought.

7. CASH
   
   Cash is usually the best way to help because it can help obtain what is needed most and is extremely flexible. Also, the agency that you donate to most likely has the experience of what to send, how to get it there, and how to get it to the area where it is most needed.
   
   For example: If the water supply is bad, bottled water will be very critical. We gathered pallets of bottled water and had it shipped to Katrina victims. But by the time it arrived, thousands of other companies and individuals had done the same thing, the water supply had been secured, and there was an abundance of bottled water at the site, requiring a storage site (not easy to find) and resources to handle it.

8. Give blood.
   
   In many disasters hospitals are affected by both shortage of supply because of many injured people and by transportation issues. Particularly if you are close, blood deliveries will be made a priority. Even if you are far away, blood supplies that had been available in your area may have been depleted by earlier shipments to the disaster area.

9. First Response Things to Send:
   
   Amazingly, the first things that people want to send are food, clothes, toys and furniture. People who have had their homes destroyed have no place for furniture, clothes, or toys at first. They WILL need food. But they may not have a can opener for the canned goods sent (so send one for each 20 cans of food.)
   
   Other things they will need right away:
   
   Bottled Water
   NEW clean underwear.
   Toilet Paper
   Canned Goods (with pull type lids)
   Can Openers (not electric)
   Diapers
   Feminine Products
   Paper plates
   Plastic utensils
   Baby Food
   Blankets
   Clean bedding, marked as to size
   Socks
   Plastic garbage bags (can serve as luggage, rain coat, or help for clean up.)
   Hand Sanitizer
   Kleenex
   Cleaning products
   Buckets
   Toothbrushes and Toothpaste
   (New) combs
   GLOVES
   Shovels
   Radios (battery operated or hand crank)
   Batteries
   Of any clothes, large sized sweat suits and children's T-shirts and pants are most needed.

10. Semi-Drivers
    
    If you have a CDL and can volunteer to drive even one load of goods to the area, your services will always be needed. The cost of delivering goods is often quite high particularly with the higher fuel costs. If you are willing to donate the use of your truck and or even your driving services for even one run, most places that have collected items will be willing to pay for your fuel.
    
    The first delivery needed is usually a tanker of clean water.
    
    Delivery of goods will continue usually for months.
    Post through craigslist.com
    Post through FEMA's website
    Contact your local newspaper. They will be happy to publish your offer.

11. Send these items a little later for rebuilding purposes.
    
    After the initial call for aid, any building supplies are in high demand.
    Hand Tools
    Nails
    Lumber
    Wall Board
    Tile
    Hammer
    Generators
    Fuel Cards
    Phone Cards
    Nuts and bolts
    Screws
    Still keep sending gloves and cleaning supplies

12. Finally, Things to Send When it is Time to Re-settle
    
    Good used furniture.
    Building supplies still needed. Perhaps your local building supply company will give a discount if you gather funds for a large buy.
    Good used clothing. Thing of the utility. Simple clothing is best. Do not send your old prom dress or your child's tutu from a dance recital. Send basic shirts, pants, jackets, new socks and new underwear.

13. Jobs
    
    If you have a job to offer, even if temporary, post it in their local papers or on CraigsList. Consider travelling expenses.

Tips & Warnings

• Many of us want to gather and send goods. Transportation costs are high. Be sure to consider that. Sometimes you can find a good hearted driver willing to take the load. Try and at least pay the fuel costs.
• Packing goods to send by throwing hundreds of loose boxes into a semi creates a total disaster on the other end for unloading. Put your boxes on skids and shrink wrap them. Load a hand pallet truck on the back end of the truck and unloading will be a thousand times better.

[darkangle]

on 9/24/2008 Galveston survivors cannot get help here in Henderson, KY after they come here after they where rescued from IKE My son went to the red cross here in Henderson, Ky. and the red cross told them that they were NOT GOING TO HELP, All they wanted was a voucher so they could get under cloths and was told no, Everybody down here in Henderson, KY has told them no. MY son and his girl friend been a survivor of IKE. I do not know if you can help. They have been to the Red Cross ( Can not help, because they do not know how they can help FEMA has gave them no guide lines for them to go by and because of all the people that fruded them during Katrina ) They have been to housing ( Can not help, because they do not know how they can help FEMA has gave them no guide lines for them to go by) They been to Audubon Area ( They won't help, because so many people fraud-ed them during Katrina they won't hel