The Kindness of Neighbors

Nick Macdonald (left) talks with Peggy Springer, a Canadian Red Cross volunteer, about how Mercy Corps can help the shelter in Slidell. Photo: Roger Burks/Mercy Corps

Just after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast, some residents of Slidell, Louisiana sprung into action to help neighbors that had lost their homes: they set up a temporary shelter in one of the city parks. Many of the shelter volunteers had their own houses or businesses damaged by the storm. However, they saw other people in greater need and, putting aside their own problems and concerns, prepared a place for them to stay.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been largely defined by the kindness of strangers.

We all saw images on the news of private citizens taking fishing boats into flooded New Orleans to rescue survivors from their rooftops, as well as a variety of similarly selfless efforts. Today, I saw dozens of volunteers distributing food and supplies, answering questions, giving information and just giving a lending hand to displaced families in whatever way they could.

An electrical crew all the way from Missouri propped up utility poles and restrung power lines. Georgia state highway patrolmen were on the streets to relieve exhausted local policemen. People from all parts of this country, and many other countries, are here on the Gulf coast looking to help in whatever way they can.

In the week and a half since the hurricane struck, the Slidell city park shelter has emptied into the gymnasium of that city’s North Shore High School. Over 200 people are currently sleeping on the gym floor, and families are still arriving every day. One woman, many months pregnant, arrived at the shelter with her husband and two small children today. A volunteer nurse immediately met her and asked about any special needs she might have.

“This is one of the worst-hit areas along the Gulf coast,” said Annette Nohe, a Red Cross volunteer from western New York who is helping at the Slidell shelter. “School is supposed to resume here on October 3, but this shelter will operate for as long as it’s needed.”

Mercy Corps has provided more than 100 bedding kits to families at the North Shore High School shelter, and will soon deliver “Comfort Kits” containing crayons, a coloring book, a toy and school supplies to children living in shelters around the area. There are 14 shelters in this parish alone, containing well over 1,000 displaced people.

Much of Mercy Corps’ work in hurricane-affected areas has been simply traveling to devastated areas, finding shelters and schools and just asking what we can do to help. There are enormous needs across the region, ranging from food and water to cots and generators. Towns have welcomed evacuees and swollen to twice their normal population, and need help to provide for displaced families.

The team I traveled with today, which included Mercy Corps Senior Program Officer Nick Macdonald and program assistant Sarah McLaughlin, visited both Slidell and Covington, Louisiana. We spoke with a variety of local officials and emergency volunteers. We learned that there are 14 shelters in St. Tammany Parish – almost every larger town in the parish is hosting displaced families. Every one of these families has needs.

Townspeople from across the region have been heartwarmingly hospitable in responding quickly to shelter families with nowhere else to turn – families that have lost everything.

Mercy Corps will continue to support shelters while also working with local officials and schools to ensure children can get back into classrooms and families can get back to work – and eventually return to homes of their own.

For now, the Gulf region in many ways resembles one big neighborhood, with folks from all over pitching in to help. When you think about it, there really are no strangers in this collective effort.