Big relief effort meets Katrina

[steve2470]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0830/p01s02-ussc.html

Early deployment of rescue teams and aid may prove key to the response.

By Kris Axtman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

HOUSTON – Even before hurricane Katrina made landfall Monday, a massive relief brigade - one that officials hoped would be an equal match for a huge Category 4 storm - was being deployed to help residents along Louisiana's low-lying coast.

Among them: The Red Cross called upon some 5,000 volunteers, including some who drove in from Washington State. Members of Fark.com, an online discussion board, offered to host fellow forum participants who were fleeing Katrina. And FEMA, the federal disaster-response agency, moved its search-and-rescue teams - as well as stockpiles of ice, water, and food - as close as safety would permit.


The outpouring of aid, possibly the largest the US has ever seen to cope with a domestic natural disaster, stems from Katrina's imposing size as well as its destination so near the major population center of New Orleans.

Such early deployment of relief is unusual in disaster-aid work. But damage projections had been so severe - and New Orleans deemed so vulnerable in its dependence on a network of levees, canals, and pumps to keep dry - that President Bush on Saturday went ahead and declared an emergency in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mobilize ahead of the storm.

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