Coordination among relief agencies | 08.31.2006 | 05:38:06 | Views: 5435 | ID: August 31 '06: Upper-level coordination of relief agencies during an emergency is essential for response and recovery operations immediately after a disaster, a new report from the Aspen Institute found. Big Medicine quoted the report this week saying that, "Hurricane Katrina showed that there is no central disaster planning and coordination entity that connects the local to the national." The author, Tony Pipa, "is the former executive director of the Warner Foundation and a former executive on loan at the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation," Big Medicine wrote. "Pipa spent several months interviewing government, nonprofit and foundation leaders about their experiences during the period immediately following Hurricane Katrina." After the storm hit the Gulf Coast, small relief agencies were inundated with storm refugees, logistics and stretched resources while larger organizations like the Red Cross and federal organizing efforts through the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to organize, assist and direct recovery operations. "From Pipa's conversations emerges a picture of a disaster response that was overwhelmed by the size of Katrina. With more than 1 million people left homeless, shelters sprouted up across the Gulf Coast, often under the auspices of a church of human service provider. But neither the tremendous outpouring of charitable support nor the supplies of the federal government filtered down to these organizations, leaving them vulnerable to closing or reduction in services," Big Medicine reported. Melissa Flournoy, the president and CEO of the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations said, "With a disaster of this scale, every nonprofit becomes a disaster responder. ... It's the smaller organizations that are so vital but that also need the most help."
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