BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – Despite historic flooding across the southeast region of Louisiana, relief volunteers and organizations still say that donations have not matched the needs of those affected.
Sherry Buresh, the director of the U.S. Disaster Response for All Hands Volunteers out of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, said her team could certainly use more volunteers in helping to rebuild the area.
“The more volunteers that come in, the quicker we can get people taken care of,” Buresh told USA Today.
Buresh is pleading for not only more volunteers, but for Americans to donate to disaster relief efforts for the state, a gesture that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump gave national attention to when he was taped unloading supplies he donated to flood victims in the region.
Brad Kieserman, the vice president of Disaster Operations and Logistics for the American Red Cross told USA Today that the flooding crisis is the largest natural disaster since Superstorm Sandy.
“It does take the whole community to recover from a disaster like this,’’ said Kieserman.
Though he said more help is needed, he acknowledged that small faith groups across the country are organizing supply collections for victims.
“There’s nothing that those folks are doing that is not needed in Louisiana,’’ Kieserman told USA Today. “This is going to be a multi-month operation. If you can’t go now, maybe you can go after Labor Day.’’
And it’s not just disaster relief organizations who are concerned with the lack of resources following the unprecedented flooding in the state.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate told USA Today he was worried that the need for help in the region had not resonated with Americans across the country like it had in the past with Sandy and Hurricane Katrina.
“People are kind of like tuned out because of, I think, everything from the elections to the Olympics,’’ Fugate said. “I don’t think people across the nation realize how big or how bad this is or how much help the Salvation Army, Red Cross, Catholic Charities — just a whole bunch of volunteer organizations that are down here — are going to need.”
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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