25 Days After the Storm...

Hi All,

It has been 25 days since Hurricane Katrina. I figured I’d send another update on our work here along the Gulf Coast before Rita makes landfall and creates a whole new set of problems for the network.

The food bank passed the 3 million pound mark in distribution earlier this week and has an additional 1 million pounds of food inbound from the efforts of the network staff. In addition to the 132 donated loads from the network, (over 100 have already arrived), we’ve had 10 USDA disaster loads, 6 Oprah donated loads, and approximately 10 direct loads from other donors. 5 of the original 6 loaned staff members will have departed by tomorrow and we have received new staff from Oregon, San Jose, Sacramento and Colorado which is maintaining our strength. To all who have loaned staff members, thanks! They’ve each pitched in and done terrific work, sometimes nothing like what they came to do, in helping us distribute over 5 times our usual rate. We have also received 8 FEMA funded temporary employees who are being trained on various warehousing duties to help us in the long haul recovery effort.

For the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast the relief effort is largely complete and we are now in the recovery effort. That means many of the hot feeding sites are standing down, people are camped on their property or in some form of temporary shelter. The next few months will continue to require expanded food distribution because those living close to the edge financially are now waiting for financial assistance, water and power still needs to be fully restored and then commercial businesses need to restock. As a result, most of the 140 different organizations we’ve distributed to will be shifting from constant distribution to periodic mass distributions, probably on weekends, as those people in the disaster area restart jobs or assist with clean-up during the week.

Damage estimates become more and more refined every day. It appears that this storm has affected our Mississippi/west Alabama service area at approximately 3 times the level that Hurricane Ivan impacted our Florida/east Alabama service area last year. That translates to somewhere in the range of 80,000 people significantly impacted out of the coastal Mississippi population of roughly 300,000. Where New Orleans is largely a displaced persons relief effort due to flooding, our service area has much of the population in place but in vastly substandard living conditions. I can report that our two person Gulfport SDO, Twelve Baskets, amazingly escaped significant damage in spite of the buildings on either side being destroyed. The Branch manager, Jennifer Knue is back at work getting the building cleaned and waiting on the return of water and power-still weeks away. Unfortunately her assistant, Brenda Williams suffered a total loss of her home and has had to move in with one of her children’s family, an all too common situation.

I’ll close this update by saying that support from Mike and Al’s staffs has been outstanding in what has to be the biggest challenge the network has ever faced. Two examples of their effort; to get rental Reefer trucks on site to increase our direct distribution, the Chicago staff had to go all the way to Iowa before they could find available trucks. And, when I identify a particular need, such as a request for a supply of Pedialyte in case intestinal problems should develop among returnees, the staff finds the item and gets it to us. There is no doubt that the Chicago staff is clearly focused on doing their best to get us through this disaster. Doug O’Brien’s staff is helping cut, no eliminate, red tape in getting USDA food to each of us to assist with emergency distribution.

This morning the local NBC affiliate featured the food bank with a lead in that essentially said, “there is one area organization that has worked effectively since Katrina struck” and closed with a comment that the one thing not found anywhere at the Food Bank was “Red Tape.” We got the credit, but it is the entire network that can take pride in the statement.

We’ve posted some pictures on our web site www.bayareafoodbank.org for those interested.

Dave Reaney
Executive Director
Bay Area Food Bank
Theodore (Mobile) Alabama