Hurricane Katrina - my year (Part 4)

When hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast on 29th August last year, it did enormous damage to Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Hurricane damage reached far inshore and many communities were devastated. Well over a million people had evacuated ahead of the storm but in some parishes, there were people who choose to ride it out. This may be difficult for people in New Zealand to understand. However, hurricanes are not infrequent events and evacuation can be difficult. For people with their own transport, there are still the problems of obtaining fuel, getting supplies, and boarding up houses. Many people had ridden out bad hurricanes before and come to no harm. It is easy from a distance and with hindsight to say, "I would have evacuated", but unless you live in an area that gets these warnings, you really don’t know what you would do. High temperatures, lack of fuel supplies, hours upon hours in traffic gridlock, and knowing that as you head North accomodation will be quickly filling with the other million or so getting out are good reasons to think twice. We must also remember that nothing is certain about where a hurricane will make landfall until just a matter of hours before.

In the past year, I have also heard New Zealanders ask why people were not better prepared for a long period without outside help. Perhaps they were. For those who do wonder that though, perhaps you should look to yourselves. One of the after-effects of hurricane Katrina on me cost a small fortune. I realised that despite the regular warnings we have here that we have to prepare evacuation plans for our families and need to have enough supplies and first aid gear for a minimum of 3 days, I was not prepared. Hurricanes give some warning. Earthquakes don’t. Even with warning, people have to be able to access supplies, have enough money to pay for them, and the ability to transport them home.

Katrina gave me a wake-up call and I felt an urgent need to get an emergency supply kit together. New Zealand emergency services were advising that we should prepare for a minimum of 3 days and up to five days, so I did. Five days of human food and dog food, water (3 litres per person, per day, plus water for dogs), candles, torches, radio, batteries, matches, etc. etc. I added a complete St John’s first aid kit with additional thermal blankets. I bought the containers to put this all in, then sat back and realised that putting together this kit for a household had cost me a LOT of money. It continues to cost me a lot of money as supplies have to be changed, water replaced, and first aid kits topped up whenever items are used.

So, what about the people of New Orleans? While other areas of the Gulf Coast were affected far more by hurricane damage, New Orleans captured the world’s attention when the levees broke and people began to drown. Why did so many stay? Well, the reasons would have been as individual as the people, but many people had no choice. More than 100,000 New Orleanians had no personal means of transport. Many of them were unemployed and living on welfare cheques. Katrina came at the end of the month, at a time when money runs out for those on welfare. With no personal means of transport and no money for public transport, these people were completely reliant on local and State government to get them out.

This leads me into another question people here ask. Why did I get involved? While it is tempting to me to just say, "well, why not?" or "somebody had to", I think the real reason goes deeper than that. While I grew up with very little exposure to my Maori heritage, I did grow up spending a lot of time with my grandmother. She was born in Waipoua, in Northland and my favourite activity as a child was spending hours with Nanna while we poured over her huge collection of loose photographs and she told me the stories behind them. My Granny Piipii was a strong part of my life, though she had died before I was born. Waipoua was firmly in my heart, although I never went there until it was time to bury my beloved Nanna. Somewhere along the line, I learned a strong sense of community. From the earliest age, I have known that it is community that matters and which defines us. I tried responding to a reporter who asked about my involvement, by quoting, "he tangata". The reported didn’t get it. But, that old Maori saying really sums up why I got involved with Disastersearch and why I am still leading the project.

He aha te mea nui? He tangata. He tangata. He tangata. Translation: "What is the most important thing? It is people, it is people, it is people."Māori Proverb

What happened with hurricane Katrina could happen to any one of us, anywhere in the world. In February, 2004, the Manawatu (the region in which Palmerston North is situated) went under water in one of the worst flooding disasters in New Zealand history. We were fortunate, nobody lost their lives, but enormous damage was done and many people lost their homes. New Zealand is also earthquake prone and everyone who grows up here knows that one day we are likely to experience a catastophic earthquake. We have ‘quakes all the time just to remind us that we are powerless against Mother Nature. New Zealand is rarely hit by devastating tropical cyclones (our name here for hurricanes), but it does happen. So, for me, I see Mother Nature as a random aggressor that can impact on any of us, and people who need help just need that help, no matter whether they are in the Gulf States or next door. The team on the Katrina Evacuee Help Center (later renamed Disastersearch) saw a need and had the skills to respond to it, so we did. It was a simple as that.

There were some here in Palmerston North who criticised me for my decision not to attend some council workshops. That criticism was justified, I did not attend some workshops. However, I didn’t need to either. The old "tick in the attendance register" does not tell the full story and while I lost out on some ticks, I did not miss out on any information. I attended those that I needed to attend to ensure I was fully informed. I also attended, along with some other councillors, catch-up meetings over lunchtimes (these don’t get the ticks). But, for each workshop, I contacted staff and asked some important questions: "is the workshop covering any new issues? Is there anything being presented that I do not already know? Is it necessary for me to attend?" If the answer to each was "No" then I did not take valuable time away from my work on disastersearch.org. One can achieve a lot when working 18-20 hour days, and I did this for months.

The only other question I get asked frequently, about my involvement, is how Americans reacted to Disastersearch being headed up by a New Zealander. Actually, few knew then and few know now. Reporters generally lost interest in what we were doing when they realised they could not use Disastersearch for a "look at how grass-roots America rallies round" story. They didn’t seem too keen to follow that storyline with any of our team that lives in the US either (perhaps Mexican nationals translating our site for the Spanish language version we provide are not newsworthy?). One reporter asked me if "New Zealand" was south of New Hampshire (so, of course I told him it was!) US senators and their staff that I have spoken with were usually amazed that I was involved, though many did not seem to have a clue what New Zealand is. But, in my day to day communications with evacuees and those searching for them, I just became bi-lingual. My spelling is never likely to recover from a year with Katrina, but my ebonics has improved outta site!

This is the fourth installment of my series on hurricane Katrina and my involvement with disastersearch.org. It is written primarily for my local readers, here in New Zealand, and particularly those in Palmerston North who have asked questions about how and why their city councillor got involved, and remains so. I will be writing more as the week goes on and that dreadful anniversary approaches.