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8A I Monday, August 28, 2006
Savannah Morning News I savannah
KATRINA'S SCARS
Volunteers
FROM PACE IA
agency’s 125-year history.
“We got it started, but it was very difficult to keep supplies running in the pipeline, to keep food coming in,” Wingate said.
With support from donors, the agency this year tripled its warehouse space to eight locations around the country, holding enough cots, blankets and food kits to serve 500,000 people a day for at least 10 days. The nearest is outside Atlanta.
For many evacuees, the Red Cross was the first place they looked to for financial assistance when leaving shelters.
But it took the agency seven weeks to deliver assistance to all those in need.
Now that it has pre-stocked a million debit cards, the Red Cross hopes the disbursement period has been reduced to within 10 days of a disaster.
One local improvement that will quicken response in Savannah is the installation of a satellite tower at Red Cross headquarters on Drayton Street. The equipment will allow more people to communicate using satellite phones, cell phones and radios, even if power is lost in the city.
The local chapter also wants to build more partnerships with other charities, service groups and volunteers.
Last summer, more than 20 agencies came together to make sure people taking shelter in the area had the basic necessities: food; money; medical care; a path to long-term recovery. More than 400 volunteers from the local chapter assisted.
But many more partners are needed, especially organizations such as churches with space to shelter evacuees, Wingate said.
Although volunteering spiked following Katrina, many charity leaders discouraged renegade responders from driving into the heart of the chaos.
“I don’t think disasters are a time for amateurs,” said Trent
AP POLL
After Katrina, many America nation isn’t ready for another
Special to the Savannah Morning News
More than 250 people, including those in this photo taken in September, signed up as volunteers for the Savannah Chapter of the American Red Cross in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina.
Stamp, executive director of the watchdog group Charity Navigator.
Wingate agreed.
She heard stories of volunteers loading up trucks of supplies and arriving in an affected area with no place to distribute the goods.
Still, she doesn’t want to discourage more volunteers to reach out in every way possible.
The key is to start planning now.
“Ally yourself with a receiver,” she said. “It could be the First Baptist Church here with the First Baptist Church in that area. You need some sort of channel to communicate with someone on the other end.”
More importantly, Wingate said, people need to get the training necessary to respond effectively.
“I would really encourage people to invest a little bit of time to come into our office and take a couple of courses — take an introduction to disaster course, learn what agencies help and what they do,” Wingate said.
“The more you know ... the easier it’s going to be to help,” she said.
LOCAL SUPPORT IS STILL AVAILABLE
•	Project Hope crisis counseling hotline:
(800) 273-TALK or (866) 821-0465
•	Helpline Georgia: (800) 338-6745 (offers local numbers for food stamps, Medicaid and other government services)
•	2-1-1 Helpline: 211 (offers local numbers for nonprofit services supported by the United Way)
•	Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Savannah: (912) 691-2227 (Call for information on offices in Statesboro, Hinesville, Brunswick and Hilton Head Island, S.C.)
•	Department of Family and Children Services Chatham County:
(912) 651-2217 Liberty County:
(912) 370-2555
•	Health Department Chatham County:
(912) 356-2441 Liberty County:
(912) 876-2173
BY HOPE YEN
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Their confidence shaken by Katrina, most Americans don’t believe the nation is ready for another major disaster, a new AP-Ipsos poll finds.
Poor people are more likely to fear becoming victims of the next disaster.
The survey, conducted one year after the devastating hurricane and with much of New Orleans still in shambles, found diminishing faith in the government’s ability to deal with emergencies. It also gave President Bush poor marks for his handling of the storm’s aftermath.
The region could get an eerily timed test of preparedness with forecasters concerned that a storm system named Ernesto could be at hurricane strength as it crosses over Cuba and heads across the Florida Keys this week.
Fifty-seven percent in the poll said they felt at least somewhat strongly the country was ill-prepared — up from 44 percent in the days after the storm slammed ashore on Aug. 29, 2005. Just one in three Americans polled
Pickin’ Up
FROM PAGE IA
cleaners.
“What they have done to restore our old lives is nothing short of a miracle,” wrote Patricia Wilson in a March 28 letter to the editor in the Savannah Morning News.
“It has been an edification to realize that people so far away care enough to come here to help,” said Wilson, who spent her 57th wedding anniversary riding
believe Bush did a good job with Katrina, down from 46 percent a year ago.
“Nobody actually realized soon enough what the scope of this thing was,” said Frank Sheppard, a 63-year-old retiree in Valrico, Fla., who considers himself strongly Republican. “The day after, people were actually celebrating.”
“They didn’t realize that the levees were deteriorating and breaking at that time,” he said.
One year after Katrina, large areas of New Orleans remain virtually uninhabitable with piles of debris and wrecked cars.
Only $117 million in at least $25 billion in federal aid has reached the city, while federal investigators determined that roughly $2 billion in taxpayer money was wasted in no-bid contracts and disaster aid to people who did not need the help.
The AP-Ipsos poll surveyed 1,001 adults Aug. 7-9 and 1,000 adults Aug. 15-17 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The poll found race and class differences sometimes did color people’s perceptions.
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out the storm with her husband and daughter in an attic.
The Edwards want to do more. But their charity is hitting a dry spell for volunteers.
“We’ve taken several volunteer groups down there and kind of exhausted our recruiting efforts among our churches, friends and e-mail list,” Linda said. “Volunteers are becoming increasingly hard to come by.”
The Edwards will accompany two weeklong trips to Mississippi in October and are most in need of skilled laborers such as home
builders, ] cians.
But any their sleev aged to coi “If there go down tl Linda said The cos week with is $100, v lodging at1 and transp For infc Edwards a linda@pic
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It feels like home.