MILTON — The week of Aug. 8-14, Louisiana received over 31 inches of rain in Watson in a 15-hour period while the flood sprawl covered two-dozen parishes in the state.
Since then, volunteers around the nation have visited the state to offer relief in various forms. But has it been enough?
It depends on what you've contributed, officials say.
Kyle Holley, the Major Gifts Manager at United Way Santa Rosa County, said Louisiana is accepting donations, but needs specific items now. He said the St. Landry-Evangeline United Way in Opelousas, La., is asking not to send clothes and furniture yet.
He also said food is not a problem now, with the network of food banks and the Federal Emergency Management Agency on hand.
“We can’t clog distribution centers with recovery items during response, volunteers sorting boys and girls clothes. It’s the wrong time for all that.”
Holley said the most important items to send are hygiene products, pet food and mold remediation items.
“The crisis is how to keep the 10,000 people clean in the shelters. What they need now are basic things: toothbrushes, toothpaste, razors, diapers, anything to keep people clean. Cleaning supplies are great to send in, too,” Holley said.
Still, there are larger needs.
Holley said donating money for transportation, like a U-Haul, is a way people can help.
For Santa Rosa's part, individuals and organizations in the county have been getting supplies to different areas.
Friends are reaching out to friends, like Tra Alidor, head coach at Team Remedy Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts, who collected and shipped cleaning and school supplies for friends in the Baton Rouge area.
Jill Hayes, horse riding instructor and caretaker at the Hayes ranch, made a supply run to Amite City, La., to help others in the horse community. The Amite river rose to just under 15 feet.
Hayes took supplies like feed, hay brushes, and buckets to a veterinary clinic that became a shelter for flood victims with animals.
Hayes said it was shocking seeing the devastation to people’s houses as well as horses. She said some owners let their horses go while others tied them up on high ground. Many horses, she said, sat in water for days.
“All the skin on their legs, you could tell it was coming off,” she said.
Hayes said, when she was there, the barn at the vet clinic was near capacity with donations, but the clinic will soon use its supplies and need more in a month’s time.
Emerald Sands Inn, on Highway 90, is a drop-off point for flood donations. Charlene Ford, property manager, worked the weekend of Aug. 27 in Maurepas, an unincorporated community in Livingston Parish, east of Baton Rouge because she has relatives in the area.
Ford said she took mattresses, chairs, clothing, tools, cleaning supplies, and air freshener in a U-Haul vehicle.
“Everybody has mold so you’ve got to get stuff off the floor and throw away and replace the Sheetrock,” she said.
Due to the mold’s smell, she said air freshener and cleaning tools were in high demand — “anything to get the yuck out of there,” she said.
With so many homes damaged, Ford said neighbors couldn’t help each other much since they all had their own damage to manage.
Ford plans to return. She said she paid for the first U-Haul out of pocket but will make the next trip by truck, unless she receives enough donations to warrant another delivery vehicle.
Meanwhile, Woodbine United Methodist Church in Pace is collecting items through Sept. 25.
The church is collecting box fans and extension cords, garden sprayers to kill mold, tools, wheelbarrows, and hygienic supplies.
The church has also teamed up with Lowe’s Home Improvement of Pace to fill 125 cleaning buckets, according to Mike Dwyer, human resource manager at the store.
Dwyer said Jimmy Allen, lead pastor at Woodbine, approached him about how Lowe’s could help.
“Other than just parking a trailer in their lot and putting some words out, (Allen has) gotten behind this and he hit a bunch of retailers and made rounds to generate help for folks.”
Dwyer said the plan he and Allen came up with involves 125 lidded buckets donated by Lowes with a list of items people would take to fill them.
“His goal is to get these 125 buckets packed and filled to ship over to Louisiana,” Dwyer said.
After four years at the Lowe’s in Pace, Dwyer said his experience with the company is one of being involved in the community, with support from the employees and the corporation wanting to help.
Allen said his church received a list of needs from the Louisiana Conference of the United Methodist Church. The Conference, he said, told him not to send food or clothing.
“I’ve helped during Katrina. There were piles of clothes that were not going to go anywhere. They had a flood of clothing with no way of distributing it and it was just stacking up. With us we have a very specific list of items.”
As of this writing, the list was not available on the church’s website, www.mywoodbine.org, but is available on its Facebook page in an Aug. 29 post. Those interested can also contact the church at 995-0007. Woodbine UMC is located at 5200 Woodbine Road in Pace.
For more information on what UWSR is taking, call 623-4507.
Through individuals and organizations, Santa Rosa County is helping survivors of Louisiana’s flood. CNN reports the following numbers regarding the natural disaster:
●The flood caused at least $30 million in damage, according to the Red Cross
●6.9 billion gallons of rain fell in one week
●Members of the Coast Guard and National Guard, along with emergency responders and civilians, helped take more than 20,000 residents to safety, officials said. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said 1,000 pets have also been rescued.
A NATURAL DISASTER’S PHASES
Kyle Holley, a major gifts manager at United Way of Santa Rosa County, said there are four phases of a natural disaster and specific items people should donate during the last two.
●Preparation — This is the time to stock up on disaster supplies like water, food, a radio, flashlight, batteries, first aid and garbage bags.
●The Event — Stay indoors and away from windows.
●Response — After the event, Holley said shelters and charitable agencies first need hygiene items as well as pet food. They need to immediately start mold remediation if there has been flooding. Human food and clothing is not necessary at this time since most urban areas, he said, have food banks and pantries.
●Recovery — This is the time, Holley said, to bring construction materials, flooring, furniture and clothes.
●Mitigation — By this time, Holley said donations are less in need and government agencies are funding long-term recovery efforts.
Holley said two good indicators a disaster area has moved from response to recovery is when agency hotline calls have stopped and power has been restored.
FAST FACTS
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Santa Rosa County residents help Louisiana flood survivors