Jackson Free Press

I arrived in Jackson, Miss., from Washington, D.C., last Wednesday, hoping to help the Mississippi Center for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, coordinate pro bono attorneys, law professors and legal aid offices, an army of whom are ready to respond to the overwhelming need hurricane victims have for legal assistance. In the midst of this effort, two other out-of-state volunteers and I left for the Mississippi coast. Armed with 25 copies of Help After a Disaster, FEMA's applicant guide, and cases of bottled water, we headed south to let people know law schools and lawyers would be providing help with the myriad legal issues they'd be facing.

But when I arrived in Gulfport on Saturday, I was simply not prepared for what I saw. Chaos, devastation and an apparent inability to deliver the most basic help to so many people in so much despair. It was day 13 after Katrina struck, and no one was coordinating the relief effort in one of the poorest communities along the coast.

We never found a resident who had ever seen even one FEMA official. No one had been able to successfully complete 'Registration Intake" via the 1-800 number. Most people we met still didn't have electricity or phone service. We finally heard of one man who got through to FEMA ˆ at 2:30 a.m. But when asked for insurance information he didn't have and didn't know how he could get since he'd lost everything and had no place else to turn, he just broke down and cried. The bureaucracy was killing him.

It's no wonder. The Sept. 11 Clarion-Ledger reported that U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering (R) had said FEMA needs 10,000 operators to properly staff the phones but Homeland Security regulations require employees to pass security clearance, typically a months-long process. The paper quotes Pickering as concluding 'In other words, the phone line is useless."

Meanwhile, our efforts were complicated because our phones rarely rang—spotty cell reception. Although I could usually call out, I wasn't able to receive calls.

Again, the Clarion-Ledger provided some insight. Representative Pickering's office reported that two days after the hurricane hit, a company offered to launch balloons that would restore cellular phone service in the region—for free. FEMA told him the company would have to go through a typically months-long competitive bidding process. The bureaucracy simply could not be avoided. FEMA representatives were nowhere to be found, but their rules and regulations are everywhere.

We stopped first at the Good Deeds Community Center, a makeshift refuge for 100s of North Gulfport and Turkey Creek residents. Red Cross volunteers told us the Florida church that had been feeding more than 600 residents two hot meals a day was leaving on Sunday and asked if we could track down another mobile kitchen. Without a second thought, we set out to help. But this was crucial stuff. Why were we doing it? Where was FEMA?

That effort had us going to area churches—where we found similar stories. Arkansas church members set up at the Grace Memorial Baptist Church had been serving up hundreds of hot meals since Thursday. They were almost out of food, leaving on Monday, but offered us their several hundred peanut butter and jelly sandwich surplus. We gratefully took it.

Another church in Ocean Springs didn't have a kitchen or cleaning supplies but could send new clothes and canned goods in a truck returning to Kentucky. Everywhere we went people asked for bleach ˆ both to kill the bacteria from raw sewage so they could safely take a bath, and also to stop the spread of black mold that was swallowing the walls of those fortunate enough to still have a home.

The sympathetic workers in the county courthouse had few ideas for us. When asked where FEMA was one responded 'your guess is as good as mine."

Looking for another church we'd heard was preparing large numbers of hot meals, we took a wrong turn and found ourselves in a redzone. We passed the ominous buildings some of which had a bright orange spraypainted 'X" ˆ indicating that the dead bodies still in the building had been identified so rescue workers had moved on. We also passed a van with Indiana license plates, and signs hanging in the windows that read "CAN'T FIND MY FATHER—PLEASE HELP."

Returning to Good Deeds to report on our progress, we saw a county worker pull up with a truckload of ice. Twenty minutes later, with the truck unattended, no one aware of its precious cargo, and the ice quickly melting in the stifling sun, my colleagues and I hopped into the back of the truck. Yelling 'free ice" we urged people to take as many bags as they could carry and distribute it to neighbors on their way home.

Meanwhile, the onsite Red Cross volunteers gave out the last of their day's food and toy stash from their U-Haul, distraught because without hot food coming on Sunday, Good Deeds would be closed. No one knows what will happen next. There is simply no delivery or distribution system in place. Without the inspiration of leaders from groups like North Gulfport Community Land Trust and Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, and an army of volunteers, nothing would be getting done.

We next drove down Rippy Road, the center of the northern Gulfport community of Turkey Creek, to see firsthand its destruction. The historic residences in this African American neighborhood were part of a settlement built by freed slaves in the Reconstruction Era. Many of those homes are now uninhabitable.

While in another church parking lot, all three of us on separate cellphone conversations, one of my colleagues whooped with delight when she heard that the Kentucky-bound truck had arrived at Good Deeds. "I'm in the chain gang unloading now" reported the Harrison County Supervisor staffer who has been working 14-hour days for eleven days straight. Unfortunately I had to report that the Long Beach pastor trying to track down a volunteer McDonald's truck could not be located and that no one knew where it had gone. We still had hope the Colorado Springs volunteers we met in the county courthouse could make a miracle happen as they'd promised to look for a mobile kitchen and cleaning supplies.

There's no question that eventually the need for legal services will be top priority and that it will be an on-going effort—likely for years. The Mississippi Bar, clinical law professors and students, and pro bono law firm and legal aid attorneys are continuing their Herculean efforts. Lawyers will be critical. Only they can help people get legal guardianship of the children they now care for, help the newly disabled get SSI benefits, elderly homeowners avoid predatory lenders, families file for bankruptcy, the insured appeal denials of coverage because damage is deemed caused by flood (not covered) not hurricane (which is), and help with myriad other legal issues.

However, the immediate imperative is to cut through the bureaucracy and get the hurricane's victims the most basic of life's needs ˆ now. The United States is the most powerful and richest nation in the history of the world. That power and resources now needs to be used to get life's essentials to thousands of people who are facing chaos, devastation and death. But what we saw, or didn't see, was as potentially devastating. A system that has broken down will bring down all who are in need. Headlines tell us that the relief effort is stepping up, but to the people we met in North Gulfport and Turkey Creek, and hundreds of places like them, those headlines are meaningless.

Please contact your congressman and senators and demand the FEMA red tape be cut;
contact your local churches and synagogues to see how you can help their efforts. Be aware the needs change every 36 hours at least so contact with churches in the affected areas is key;
Donate money to community-based organizations and legal aid organizations in the affected states;
Brainstorm new ways to get help to the most affected areas immediately.

Before returning to Jackson, we left the 25 copies of the FEMA guide with the Supervisor's staffer at Good Deeds. She promised to distribute them at Sunday church services.

Previous Comments

ID

134413

Comment

Ladd, I am reminded of the rumor you heard about FEMA offering landowner's bargain basement prices to take their properties off their hands, with the intent of turning the plots over to developers. SO, they can't do their job and help with the basic needs, but they can sure get down there to rob people of the only thing they have left!!! (if the rumor is true)

Author

Steph

Date

2005-09-16T07:42:31-06:00

ID

134414

Comment

Representative Pickering's office reported that two days after the hurricane hit, a company offered to launch balloons that would restore cellular phone service in the regionófor free. FEMA told him the company would have to go through a typically months-long competitive bidding process. The bureaucracy simply could not be avoided. I have an idea! Why doesn't the company give the balloons to Haliburton? Haliburton seems to be exempt from the bidding process. Bureaucracy my a$$.

Author

Steph

Date

2005-09-16T10:00:45-06:00

ID

134415

Comment

I email Pickering's office staff about this. I told them NOT to take no for an answer from FEMA.

Author

Steph

Date

2005-09-16T12:18:35-06:00