Response to Gustav

It is now September 3rd. Gustav ruined Labor Day for most of the people along the coast, but for most of us it was just a windy, rainy day. Our warehouse distributed supplies to four Red Cross shelters opened in Mobile County for people living near the coast and people driving in from Mississippi or Louisiana. As it turned out, most kept going north or east after they passed Mobile, driving into northern Alabama or eastern Florida in case the storm made a last minute turn. Tuesday there was heavy traffic on the interstates heading south and west as people started to head home.
It appears that our primary support will be in the same areas of western coastal Mississippi hurt by Hurricane Katrina. We’ve received a load of food supplies from the Food Bank in Waterloo, Iowa that were left after the spring flooding they worked through. We’ll also be getting a load of cleaning supplies the end of this week and perhaps another load or two of food supplies next week. Our Emergency Pantry sites in Hancock, Harrison and Pearl River Counties have all checked in and are providing reports of light demand but low food supplies. They also expect demand to increase in two or three days because most people have not yet returned. We’ll be listening in on disaster related conference calls to identify the areas with the most need and try and supply the related pantries with food and cleaning supplies Friday so they are ready to help people over the weekend.
So far the impact of Gustav in our Coastal service area looks on the level of Hurricane Dennis which struck the west Florida area about six weeks before Hurricane Katrina. That operation involved distribution of about 200,000 pounds of food and cleaning products over a period of three weeks and cost about $30,000 in operation expenses. What we can expect to see is some neighborhoods suffering from water damage in virtually all homes and without power for a week or longer, while neighborhoods within sight have almost no damage and have power restored in several days. Many of the poorest families will have access to stores that are open but will be short on money. This makes the food and cleaning supplies distributed by the small local church pantries and non-profit organizations very important since return of public services usually triggers the pull-out of Red Cross feeding vehicles. This will be especially true now as Red Cross will have to plan on shuffling assets to be ready for the Atlantic storms threatening other coastal areas 500 to 1,000 miles away.