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Media Advisory:  Sept 9, 2005
Further information: John Stein, NOVA Director of Public Affairs
For Immediate Release
john@trynova.org, 503-554-1552, fax 503-554-1532

The chart-covered walls of the conference room walls at the NOVA Headquarters list each of the states which have Crisis Response Teams at the ready. For three months into the future, in weekly increments, the number of CRT volunteers reportedly available from each state is listed. For now, in the early mobilization stages of those teams, the total numbers look impressive. But as the headquarters staff receives reports from its initial planners and service providers in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida, the need for skilled crisis responders will likely strain all of our resources, both human and financial. We expect we are in for a very long haul.

Deputy Director Cheryl Tyiska is NOVA’s lead coordinator in the effort. In her volunteer work with “National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters” (of which she is past president), she helped National VOAD obtain major stature in the field such that it is prominently displayed at all the Federal government disaster Websites, and viewers are effectively encouraged to give support to its member agencies. At the same time, she has helped to forge a compact of understandings among several groups within National VOAD which, like NOVA, provide immediate crisis intervention at disaster scenes. Turf battles are not welcome among them. She joins in daily conference calls with members of that subgroup (including the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army), and on frequent calls with all the National VOAD members and the FEMA response and recovery leaders.

Aided by many staff and volunteers at the Headquarters, her conferring, charting, and cajoling are beginning to result in help to survivors of the worst natural catastrophe in US history. Here are snapshots of some of the fieldwork to date. Their implications for the next assignments of National Crisis Response Team are clear.

COVA has a longstanding relationship with NOVA’s crisis response program. The organization of crime victim advocates across the state contains quite a few graduates of NOVA’s CRT institutes. Those members, and the protocols they use, seem to have respected status within the organization. So it was perhaps not surprising that of the three COVA members assigned to orient the incoming planeload of New Orleanians, two were experienced CRT providers. Barbara was one of them.

Each traveled by bus with the Louisiana evacuees in the half-hour trip to their shelter. By pre-arrangement, orientations covered a number of topics. The advocates told them about the dorm facility and the intake process to which they were headed. Since their guests, 125 or more, only learned of their destination to Denver after they were airborne, there were many questions about the climate, topography, and people of what was something of a foreign land for those who were truly newcomers to the Rocky Mountain West. But the message that was most emphasized, and struck the strongest nerve, was that they were coming to a secure place. The looting and attacks some of them had recently suffered or witnessed in the New Orleans Superdome would not follow them to their new quarters, they were assured. The few possessions they had preserved were now safe.

In leaving the busses, each family was teamed with an advocate who employed the CRT “companion” model, first developed for families attending family assistance centers after the 9/11 attacks and re-adapted for survivors of last year’s Florida hurricanes who went to FEMA emergency centers. The companions saw the family through the registration process, a quick health screening, the selection of available clothing, and other available social services. Many were troubled that the dorm rooms had no locks, but the 24-hour presence of law enforcement personnel gave them some assurance. As it happens, a long history of cooperation between Colorado law enforcement officers and COVA’s victim advocates made them an especially effective in conveying compassion and concern.

That first night and day went well enough, but issues arose as the advocates began chatting with the newcomers over meals in the cafeteria and elsewhere around the complex. The communal televisions had been disconnected to keep the many children from exposure to the horrors they had just left. With the advocates help, these decisions were restored to the control of the kids’ parents so others could watch the news or entertainment programs. Advocates served as effective intermediaries for many of the sick people who had not received medical care through the initial screening, so that medical services soon became easier to get.

Yet there were enough stresses remaining so that the advocates encouraged shelter administrators to hold an all-resident meeting Monday night. An official from each agency – health, education, law enforcement, and on down the list – gave a presentation of the agency’s work and plans, and answered questions. It was a productive session, leading, for example, to a pledge to have locks quickly installed on everyone’s door.

There were more people trickling in. At least one caravan of Louisianans arrived by car, including a family of 28. Some of those travelers, and even some of the airlifted ones, came with cats and dogs, some of them family pets, some orphans in the storm. The next large influx came in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

These were New Orleanians who had initially not sought shelter. Rather, they were among the first of evacuees who had resisted being sent away from home, and for some, arriving at a place not of their choosing added to their distress. They came with other burdens – some came with no shoes and few with any protection against the nighttime chill. A larger proportion of the 120 newcomers were elderly and infirm. Many were famished. All these needs got addressed as the COVA advocates saw them through the intake process – followed by many 3:00 am dinners.

By the third day, the CRT-type work of the COVA companions had generated an agenda which they sought diplomatically to pursue with their colleagues and superiors in the government and non-profit disaster agencies – an adaptation of the “Family Assistance Centers” FEMA had organized after the September 11 attacks. The wish list included the presence of agency staff to meet a wider array of needs: transportation, money and jobs, a decent wardrobe in which to do job-hunting, the replacement of documents and resumption of benefit payments, a mailing address, a phone bank, an “internet café,” and so on. Many of these items are already off the checklist or will soon be met, but as of this writing, many remain unsolved problems.

As Barbara Kendall said, “Were not called ‘victim advocates’ for nothing. We are expected to be sensitive to the needs of people in terrible circumstances, and to express these to others who can help change things for the better. But it’s always gratifying to be an advocate when the decision-makers are as responsive to our recommendations as we have experienced at the shelter.”

There is no telling at this point whether the Denver experience will be repeated in any sense at other shelters – each setting is different, and the crisis response model often undertakes new improvisations to meet the immediate circumstances and the emotional needs of the survivors. While all the state CRT teams now on standby are being asked to make any shelter in their jurisdiction their first priority of service, there are indications that the use of such facilities a long distance from the evacuees’ New Orleans and Gulf Coast homes may be on the wane. But if the need is there, so will be the Crisis Response Teams.

As for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast themselves, the need for NOVA’s volunteers is eerily, almost dreadfully reminiscent of the early reports on Hurricane Katrina itself – something very, very large is coming at us very, very fast. NOVA and its thousands of trained volunteers are determined to rise to that challenge.

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