Blown away

May 4, 2011 by Amy Welborn

I spent most of today on the telephone, helping with the statewide “211” line that’s being used to help coordinate assistance for victims of last week’s tornadoes.

During those six hours, there were never fewer than fifteen people answering phones and at almost every moment, every one of us was occupied with a call – the only way you could get a break was to put your phone on hold. Usually, there wasn’t more than a couple of seconds between calls. I’d hang up, log the last call, and my phone would ring again.

I’d say the volume of calls was about half and half – half folks calling wanting to help, volunteer, and donate and half people in need of assistance of some sort.

One guy called and said, “I’m in Cullman, I’ve got a chainsaw and some time. Where can I go to clear out some trees?”
A woman called from Florida. “I’ve got a group and we want to come up this weekend – where can we go to help?”
A fellow called from Mobile, saying he had two buddies from Michigan who were going to come down for a week on their vacation time. Where could they be best used?
A woman said she was a nurse and had just gotten off work and “I have a strong back and I can lift heavy loads – can I go somewhere this afternoon?”
A young woman said she wanted to help take care of children. Another said she wanted to help in a school. An older man called and I could tell he was carefully writing down the list of items I was reading to him from my computer screen, the things they were needing most in Marshall County today. He and his wife were going right out to the store, he said. They would get as much as they could.

And any time you go to a store here in Birmingham these days, here’s what you see: people pushing carts full of water bottles, packs of underwear and socks, and packs of soup, stew and fruit, boxes of batteries. They’ll load them up, go drop them off at a church or some other center, and many of them will return tomorrow, ready to buy some more.

People are so good.

And what were the needs?

What you would expect. I was impressed by the fact that almost every person who called and needed financial assistance knew they were supposed to register with FEMA and had done so. But FEMA doesn’t cover everything, by any means. It has a specific mandate. Further, as we saw with Katrina, the more local and smaller and more personal the assistance – the more effective.

Relief – charity – can’t be one-size-fits-all. No “program” can anticipate every possible problem. So:

You have no power, no money for a generator and your elderly dad is being released from the hospital today and his equipment requires electricity. What can you do?
The power in your neighborhood is on, but the wiring to your box has been wrecked, the power company tells you that’s your responsibility, but you have no money to pay an electrician. What do you do?
Big trees have fallen all around – but not on – your house. You’re old. You can’t remove them yourself. You really don’t have much money. They don’t threaten power lines, either, so neither FEMA nor the power company has any responsibility to help you out. What can you do?
Your house wasn’t damaged, but those of relatives and friends were. Because no one – individuals, businesses – had power, no one was taking anything but cash to pay for things. So you ended up paying for a lot of folks’ needs who didn’t have the cash at the time. And now you’re broke and can’t pay your rent. Again, since you weren’t directly hit by the tornado, FEMA is not the answer.
FEMA told you to go to the Red Cross to get some immediate help, but dang if you didn’t go and find that the Red Cross office moved because the building got damaged by the tornado! Where is it?

In between the cracks. Unintended consequences. It shows, I think, why small communities of any type – neighborhoods, churches, extended family – are so important.

Most of these issues found an answer of one type or another. It took time and digging, but we got there.

And do you know what? Every one of those people who were suffering some sort of loss and difficulty – every one of them spoke with voices that may have been beaten down but were, at root, grateful. “I’m still here,” they’d say, mystified, shell-shocked, but still with a hint of hope.

And they were.

Do you want to help?

Aside from the usual channels…