Reporting on a Chaotic Relief Effort

Now that the military has moved in and other state agencies have responded to Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, some would think that all is under control. It isn’t.

Now that the military has moved in and other state agencies have responded to Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, some would think that all is under control. It isn’t.

In places like Dallas, where phone lines and e-mail work fine, the organizations handling so many of New Orleans evacuees still don’t have it together.

Texas has taken in a quarter-million strangers in the last week. But with the billions spent on emergency preparedness training over the last four years, I’d think the mechanisms to handle a catastrophe would be better-oiled than they are.

At Dallas’ Reunion Arena, finding anyone in control of the thousands of evacuees living there was impossible. When I requested information, Red Cross volunteers vanished and never returned. At one point, a businessman who came to help sort donations approached me out of frustration. He figured only the media could get the message out that they needed a litany of items—diaper-rash ointment, antacids and so on. Though he tried, he was unable to get any organizer to change the marquee in front of us from reading “No Donations Accepted.”

Disorganization followed into Oklahoma, where the Baptist General Convention and Oklahoma Emergency Preparedness set up a rural cabin retreat to accept 3,000 evacuees. Told they’d arrive within a 4-hour window, these folks rallied more than 1,000 volunteers, brought in a telephone crew to set up a cell tower, contacted the medical reserve corps, and hauled in food and drink by the truckload.

The built it, and nobody came. Instead, one bus turned away from Dallas was diverted to Utah, rather than the state across the border.

Others reported not getting through to posted hotlines because of busy signals and standing in line for debit cards that never surfaced. What is going on?

These are small examples of frustration in covering a relief effort that still lacked leadership. All the while, volunteers are turned away or put into training camps to prepare them for questions they don’t know the answers to. It makes a reporter’s job hard, but it makes a lot of people’s lives much harder.

Click below to read some of Cockerell's stories about the disaster:

» "Engineers want to rebuild, but in stages," Sept. 11
» "Rescuer returns to Oklahoma a changed man," Sept. 10
» "Camp ready, but waiting for 'guests'," Sept. 7
» "Camp awaits evacuees," Sept. 6
» "Katrina's legacy is lesson learned," Sept. 5
» "Refugees describe escaping rising water," Sept. 1
» "Oklahoma volunteers man Red Cross shelter," Sept. 1
» "Red Cross responds to Katrina in ways both large and small," Aug. 31