by William H. Woodwell, Jr.
Even if they are not located along the Gulf Coast, cities and towns throughout the country have felt the impact of Hurricane Katrina.
NLC?s 2005 National Summit on Your City?s Families provided a timely opportunity for municipal officials from across the country to discuss the response to Hurricane Katrina, its lessons for cities and towns and how to protect children and families in the event of a disaster.
Katrina was a common thread in the discussions at the summit, which was held just 100 miles from the Gulf Coast in a city that itself has housed thousands of evacuees.
Limiting the Impact
George Haddow, a former deputy chief of staff to the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), led off a panel discussion on the first day of the summit with an impassioned plea to local officials that they make every effort to limit the potential impact of disasters in their cities and towns.
?We cannot prevent hurricanes or earthquakes or other natural disasters, but we can do a lot to reduce the pain they cause for families and communities,? said Haddow, who is currently a principal with Bullock & Haddow, LLC, and an adjunct professor at The George Washington University.
Cities and towns need to create communication networks that can convey life-saving information to all citizens in times of crisis.
?In the same way that Katrina showed that we can?t expect everyone to be able to evacuate a city, not everyone is going to get the messages you send via television or radio,? Haddow said. He suggested that governments work with community groups to make sure that important information can be disseminated by trusted people and organizations at the neighborhood level.
Echoing a recurring theme at the summit, Haddow also suggested that cities get young people involved in the design and implementation of disaster plans. For example, youth can contribute by mapping the community, going door to door to identify individuals and families who will not be able to evacuate in a timely fashion.
For communities seeking state and federal resources to support disaster response and planning efforts, Haddow had this advice: don?t hesitate to ask for help.
The federal government, Haddow noted, will likely be paying 100 percent of the costs of the response to Katrina, meaning that communities do not necessarily have to worry about coming up with a ?local match.?
A City Responds
Haddow was joined on the panel by Art Hall, councilmember from San Antonio, Texas, and Audrey Rowe, president of AR Consulting and a former human services director in New Haven, Conn., and Washington, D.C.
Hall said that San Antonio shelters had provided a home for 14,600 evacuees from Katrina. The city?s first priority after the disaster was reconnecting families and meeting basic needs, according to Hall.
?Most of these people came here with nothing, and so we had to start by providing the basics like health care, a place to sleep, a warm meal,? he said. Next on the agenda, he added, were efforts to find more permanent housing and integrate displaced children into local schools.
Even with the promise of 100 percent reimbursement from the federal government, he said that cities need to recognize that their resources will be stretched to the limit in these situations.
Rowe noted that Katrina has reminded cities across the country of the importance of ?coordinated systems? in areas such as child welfare, education, emergency planning and health.
?We need to make sure these systems are talking to each other, not just in the communities that were devastated and have to be rebuilt, but in all of our cities,? she said. The aftermath of Katrina, with evacuees forced to live in often-horrifying conditions and without access to basic supports, highlights the need for a ?seamless approach? to meeting the needs of children and families, Rowe added.
Summit Participants Share Their Stories
San Antonio was one of many cities represented at the summit that have been directly or indirectly affected by Hurricane Katrina. In a facilitated small group discussion, local officials from affected communities told their stories and shared information about resources and strategies for disaster response.
Among the communities represented in the discussion was Meridian, Miss., which suffered millions of dollars in damage from debris because of the storm and is now home to as many as 1,500 evacuees. Councilmember John Harris said the influx of new residents has forced Meridian to confront the fact that local resources for children and families are scarce.
?One issue that has come to light is that we don?t have any institution or facility that can provide these people with a place to release the stress of being cooped up in shelters,? Harris said.
Witnessing the struggles of the displaced families has reinforced Harris?s commitment to making Meridian more of a child-friendly city. One of his priorities: locating the resources to build a YMCA where children have fun, healthy and productive things to do.
Details: For more information about efforts to support those affected by Hurricane Katrina, go to www.nlc.org/newsroom/press_room/news_alert/6319.aspx.