Anniversary of tragedy

This is the final post in my series about hurricane Katrina and my involvement with Disastersearch. It is probably also the hardest one to write. Today is the anniversary of hurricane Katrina making landfall on the Gulf Coast states of the US. The hurricane completely destroyed a large area across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The resultant flooding and failure of the levees destroyed a large part of New Orleans. Those of us who were not there can never understand the emotional and psychological impact on those who were directly affected. Today is an emotional day for me, but I cannot even begin to imagine how it is for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were turned upside down by this catastrophy. A year ago, a disaster was about to strike. A year on, the disaster continues.

People are still registering missing loved ones on Disastersearch. As late as this month, another body was found in the rubble. Morgues still have unidentified bodies. The true number of the missing will never be known, nor will the true number of the those who lost their lives. The southern, Gulf states had a lot of people living “under the radar” - overstayers, illegal immigrants, or just those who like to stay out of the eye of the government. These people tend not to report missing people to the FBI. Disastersearch deals simply with people. We do not ask what a persons legal status is, we do not ask for social security numbers. Consequently, we have no idea if anyone is an illegal alien, a prisoner on the run, of just plain shy of contacting government agencies. We don’t know if this is why our numbers of registered missing is higher than the official tally, but it could be a reason.

Why are so many people still searching for news of their loved ones, a year on from Katrina? There are many factors. The people who evacuated had no idea they could be gone for more than a day or two. They did not know that for many of them, there would be nothing to return to. Those of us in New Zealand could perhaps look at it like this - we go away for a weekend. Do we notify everyone who cares about us that we have gone and where we are heading to? What happens if in the time after we leave, they do too? How do we find them and how do they know we are safe? The largest evacuation in US history occurred in advance of Katrina. Those that were left behind and the others that chose to stay behind, were later forcibly evacuated to wherever they were sent, sometimes thousands of miles from their homes. Once transported, many have had no money for making their way home. People ended up in a massive diaspora right throughout the United States and as far away as Hawaii.

Disabled people were separated from their caregivers. When rest homes evacuated, their residents were sent all over the US. Children got separated from parents. Vulnerable older folk were sent to rest homes, and we are still getting reports of families finding them safe after searching through rest homes and hospitals all over the country. This has been the largest human disaster the United States has ever known. And it continues.

I wrote in my first article in this series that working with Disastersearch and the aftermath of Katrina has changed my life. It has, irrevocably. People are people, no matter what geographical and political boundaries are drawn on maps. The Internet brings people together in ways unimagined when I first became involved with it over a decade ago. I spend more time working closely with my partner in Disastersearch, Dr John Long, than I do with my family. While I am just as dedicated to my work as a city councillor in Palmerston North as I have ever been, my “out of council” times have been taken over by Disastersearch. There is something about working with people in an emergency situation to change one’s perspective on life. My house is slowly losing its clutter. Anything unnecessary is being given away or sold off. Things I have treasured for years, but don’t use, are going out the door. Some of this is necessary as I pay the costs of Disastersearch myself, some is just rationalisation. If disaster strikes here, the treasured ornament won’t help me rebuild.

The greatest change, however, has come from my realisation that Disastersearch is needed. Katrina, Rita and Wilma have proven that beyond any doubt. John was a Professor in the US, teaching programming at university. He is a highly educated and skilled man. Who also just happens to have a real interest in meteorology. When he studied it with his first university degree, he had no idea that his interest and education in this field would one day become important with Disastersearch. Likewise, I have found that much of what I have done in my past work and education has also come together in my work with Disastersearch. Years ago, I was a member of the Manakau City Civil Defense group. Little did I know that this interest, combined with the needs identified through Disastersearch, would lead me into doing the online FEMA training or heading up a humanitarian disaster response agency. One could say, we have both found our calling with this work.

We are committed to continuing Disastersearch. It is a signatory to the UN Code of Conduct for NGO’s and is in the early stages (just hampered by lack of funds) of being established as a registered charitable humanitarian agency. The software is continuing to be developed and will be offered to New Zealand emergency services and the NZ Red Cross. It also has applications in pandemic management and we are working on this too. It is anticipated that long after the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, our work will become of real benefit, not just to the United States and New Zealand, but in an international arena. And we are doing this at no charge, simply because nobody else had done it and someone had to.

For those in New Zealand, I recommend that you read some of the online material on the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The news media will be making much of this anniversary. There is a lot of conflicting news reporting being done about the Gulf States one year on. Politicians are doing what politicians are good at - presenting their spin. The real stories are those being written by the people who are there.

One of the best articles I have read recently is “Trying to Make It Home: New Orleans One Year After Katrina“, by Bill Quigley, a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. There are others out there. Read them and remember, it could be any of us at any time. As I conclude this series of articles, Tropical Storm Ernesto is gathering pace. Florida is on hurricane watch. For today, I’ve had a gutsful of Mother Nature.