Awesome post
@Steve Holmes , not only thought-provoking, touching, inspiring and insightful, but also comprehensive and very well-written too! Come out of lurk mode more often please!
You are kind,
@JamesCaruso, but I don't have the knowledge to contribute to most of your discussions; I’m just a simple country chaser. If your town's just been kicked in the family jewels by Ma Nature, I'm your man. Or if you have questions about minor-league baseball, trains, comic books, foreign travel, photography or professional wrestling.
You read part of a book I'm writing on how a city fights back from a killer disaster, with Joplin as the centerpiece. I’d never had to face my Mother’s mortality before, or what my brother had seen in the heart of the carnage as he tried to rescue her. The solution was to start writing.
More odds and ends about how to help:
Can you fix flats? Sharpen chain saws? Flip burgers? There’s a need for you.
Expect plenty of flat tires from those thousands of newly liberated construction nails seeking a new home – in your tires. That’s one reason not to go into a fresh disaster zone; you’re likely to become disabled and in the way. But if you can repair flat tires, you’ll be popular.
We had people set up shop fixing chain saws for free. Like tire repair, that’s something you can do without going into the area of damage.
People also showed up to provide food for folks working in the zone. The big volunteer outfits who make thousands of meals came here, but so did individuals like the guy from Mississippi who felt compelled by regrets from his past to come all this way to set up a grill. Making amends, one burger at a time.
The city did not shut them down. In normal times, it would have. But in normal times, some guy from Mississippi would not have traveled 300 miles to hand out free burgers. The Health Department had its hands full with potential problems like tetanus, debris dust, rats and mosquitoes. As the department chief said, they turned a blind eye to the unlicensed cooks. Part of doing your job well is knowing when *not* to do it.
You could help collect photographs that a tornado scatters over several counties. A local group did that, and created a template used by others nationwide. Volunteers cleaned the photos, dried them and catalogued them. Survivors could look through the books of photos for those they lost (pictures were among the most-mourned losses: Reminders of weddings, graduations, vacations and family history).
This was another of those volunteer tasks loaded with emotion, as in when a survivor found a treasured picture thought gone forever – especially of someone just lost to the storm. Volunteers got counseling for this.
Before you gather photos, know the law. Don’t just go into the yard of a leveled home and start picking them up. You’d be on someone else’s property. Especially after 30% of a town’s been wrecked, Johnny Law doesn’t look kindly on trespassing, no matter how well intentioned.
You don’t have to set up a fundraising event for a stricken town. Go to someone else’s event and contribute. A little girl in Wichita set up a lemonade stand to raise money for Joplin kids. A guy showed up and paid $10,000 for a glass. (You’re not expected to chip in that much.)
Help with a Facebook group that serves as a disaster-info clearinghouse. Within about two hours after the tornado, JoplinTornadoInfo went online, started by a mother-daughter team with the right skills: Mom a former nurse and reporter; the “kid” a web designer.
But even the most dedicated have to sleep sometime. The first overnight, the duties of running the page were handed off to a crew from Tuscaloosa. As one long-distance volunteer said, “I lost my mother and aunt in Alabama on 4/27. My thoughts and prayers are with you all, and we are already getting supplies together to send.” (I still tear up over that one; you’ll find a deep kinship between members of what I call “The Splintered-Wood Club.”)
One final question to ask yourself before trying to help, especially when the damage is fresh: “How will you feel about yourself if you *don’t* help?” I’m not sure how I would live with myself. I didn’t have to answer that question since I was not here when the tornado hit. That haunts me. It’s fortunate there are plenty of ways to help without seeing something you can’t unsee. Wherever you are, you can do something.
