02/06/2025
I recently spoke a Director of Tourism for a small town in Western NC. Western North Carolina were devastated and is still recovering from hurricane Helene. Entire towns, water systems, communications, and roads were wiped out. In this particular town, they did not have running water for 36 days. She shared some of her experience from running a donation and relief center out of a town hall building for the last few months:
- People were coming as far as Ohio and Maryland to deliver supplies
- They were quickly overrun with supplies and needed to use schools and historic buildings for overflow
- The town only has about 1100 people, but they had close to 900 people volunteering for the effort over the last few months
- They were receiving steady streams of unannounced trailers showing up with donated items
- Diapers, peanut butter, bottled water, and used clothes were some of the most frequent items
- Eventually it became overwhelming and they started sending goods elsewhere
- They sent 126 pallets (6 truckloads) and dozens of pallets of diapers to other larger regional emergency centers
In general, people from the outside community had no idea what was actually needed in Western NC. There is no centralized place to see what specific aid is needed and where it can be taken. This leads to undue burden on volunteers and local communities that are already struggling with their disaster. This is commonly called "the disaster after the disaster". We can fix this! Prototype coming soon!
