How to help those impacted by flooding

The UNMC director of emergency management is urging faculty, staff and students not to self-deploy or self-organize donations as they try to help victims of the flooding in Nebraska.

“In the wake of a disaster of this magnitude, people naturally want to help,” said Elayne Saejung, director of emergency management at UNMC. “The university is working to develop a donation strategy that will target goods that are needed. We are asking individuals, colleges and other entities on campus not to collect donations at this time. We also suggest people donate money to or volunteer with the Red Cross, the Salvation Army or other organized nonprofits for the time being.”

The university is establishing a donation center that will provide faculty, staff and students with opportunities to volunteer and provide donations in an organized and effective way. More details will be available in UNMC Today shortly.

Anyone already collecting donations on behalf of UNMC entities should contact Saejung, who is coordinating and tracking UNMC’s disaster-response efforts.

The Association of Healthcare Emergency Preparedness Professionals (AHEPP) has collected these tips for those who want to help their community in need after a major disaster:

• Monetary donations are always the most useful and most effective way to give. Cash gives nonprofits the greatest flexibility to provide exactly the aid that’s needed.
• In the vast majority of cases, your physical goods would be better off being donated to a local charity, church or assistance league (which would serve to help your own community should a disaster strike your area).
• Consider whether your donation of bottled water or used clothing could be obtained much faster, cheaper, and in more efficient quantities by local nonprofits and relief agencies on the ground. In almost all cases, the answer would be yes.
• If you happen to live in or near an affected area, contact your local shelter, food bank, or community organization and ask what they actually need before making a donation.
• Give only items that have been specifically requested. Ask a shelter or school what they specifically need. Check a food bank’s website to see what in-kind donations they are looking for.
• For disaster victims, give new and unopened things only. (If you have used items to donate, save them for a trip to Salvation Army, Goodwill, or another charity that accepts used items throughout the year.)
• Be aware that disaster relief efforts are quickly changing and information does not update quickly.

Why not organize spontaneous donations?

• While very well-intentioned, these donations actually hinder the recovery effort by diverting relief workers away from more crucial tasks so they can sort through the heaps of used clothing, canned food, personal hygiene products, shoes, coats, blankets, and other odds and ends.
• Donations clog airports, and emergency shelters, further hampering relief activities.
• According to a study led by Jose Holguìn-Veras, an expert on humanitarian logistics, 50 to 70 percent of the goods that arrive during emergencies is not needed or appropriate for the recovery nor the region.
• Food items you donate may be culturally inappropriate for recipients, or nutritionally inappropriate for people with dietary restrictions, protein needs, or common health problems like diabetes or hypertension.
• Dropped-off food takes up extra resources because it has to be shipped, sorted, organized, stored, and distributed by staff or volunteers.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers these recommendations:

• When considering collecting and donating in-kind items, please use the established Emergency Management concept of allowing the responding organizations to “pull” needed items and do not “push” what you think is needed. Be skeptical when you hear people say “everything is needed” or “they need as much as they can get.”
• Before collecting: Connect with organizations working in the affected area to identify what is needed, how much is needed, and when it is needed — the right items, in the correct amounts, at the right time.
• Before collecting: Identify transportation to move the items from where they are to where they are needed.
• Before collecting: Identify who will take possession of the items and how they will be used or distributed.
• Used clothing is never needed in a disaster area. Donate used clothing locally to an organization that has a year-round mission with used clothing, or sell used clothing at a yard sale and donate the money raised to a responding organization.
• Unsolicited, unorganized donated goods such as used clothing, miscellaneous household items, and mixed or perishable foodstuffs require helping agencies to redirect valuable resources away from providing services to sort, package, warehouse, transport, and distribute items that may not meet the needs of disaster survivors.

Self-deployment

The Nebraska VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) has a website with information about how to volunteer.

FEMA recommends:

• Do not self-deploy. Wait until a need has been identified and the local community impacted has requested support. Sign up to volunteer, and wait to travel until opportunities have been identified. Once assigned a position, make sure you have been given an assignment and are wearing proper safety equipment for the task.

Seeing images of disaster may compel you to head to the impacted area. Don’t underestimate the complexity of working in a disaster area. Until a need has been identified and the local community impacted has requested support, volunteers should not enter.

• Be sure to affiliate with existing voluntary organizations before coming to the disaster area, and that the organizations have been asked to respond.
• Wait until it is safe to travel to volunteer sites and opportunities have been identified.
• Once assigned a position, make sure you have been given an assignment and are wearing proper safety gear for the task.
• Be patient. Recovery lasts a lot longer than the media attention. There will be volunteer needs for many months, often years, after the disaster — especially when the community enters the long-term recovery period.
• Self-deployed people are not prepared adequately and don’t have the back up and resources to support them long term.
• Without food, lodging and other support in place, these misguided responders become yet another part of the local community that needs support from the true disaster response teams.
• Self-deployed individuals can become a huge safety issue and, in some cases, these people can actually impede the help from reaching the locations in needs.

Sources:

https://www.fema.gov/volunteer-donate-responsibly
https://www.nvoad.org/how-to-help-volunteer-do-not-self-deploy/

https://good360.org/blog-posts/avoiding-the-second-disaster-how-not-to-donate-during-a-crisis/
https://medium.com/@karenmerzenich/stop-donating-goods-to-disaster-victims-what-they-need-is-money-c818bc394131
http://disasterpodcast.com/2014/02/challenges-of-self-deployment-for-disaster-responders/