Table 2.

Disaster preparedness and response services provided by community-based organizations in southern Louisiana.

Service	No. of Participants	Illustrative Quote
Pre-disaster
Community education	7	“We incorporate it [disaster preparedness] into our education programming, but also just general outreach at any point during the hurricane season and right before for hurricane prep. We’ve also put together for our nutrition education, how to prepare for, or gather your supplies, healthier food options that are nonperishable. What else is there? It’s not our main focus, but we always incorporate it in” (Participant 5).
Training	5	“Our main focus is training, so we work with C-LEARN and the RADD program to do some training around resiliency and disasters” (Participant 4).
Evacuation planning and assistance	5	“One good example is Katrina. Some of our clients were being addressed at their homes. I was on one particular project called the SAIL Project via NAMI, which stood for the acronym of Supervised Adult Independent Living. And those services were targeted to persons with mental health concerns that lived in their homes or their apartments in the New Orleans Metro Area. So, one thing we did, before all staff had left New Orleans, we made sure all of those clients were either on a bus, or either with family members, or with somebody to take them out of harm’s way for Katrina” (Participant 3).
Distribution of emergency supplies	4	“Yeah, we have an emergency infant feeding kit that people can purchase. But it was a grant that they did a challenge and won and was able to get this nice booklet illustrated and create a kit that would help during disasters, primarily hurricanes for us” (Participant 18).
Assist other CBOs in preparedness planning	3	“Sure. I mean, actually I love talking about that because we partner with the Mayor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. And we have also over the past year and a half partnered with the Governor’s Office. And basically, just because we always use a nonprofit lens first, we did a very quick survey to find out which organizations actually had continuity of operations plan in place. And how prepared were they to respond to a disaster? And just in terms of looking at their own assets, and actual offices and the like. When we found out that, for the most part, nonprofits don’t have continuity of operations plans, are not ready to weather flooding event, a catastrophic flooding event or a storm. So, because of that, we teamed up with the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations, LANO, and we paid for them to update their continuity operations planning training module and offered it to nonprofit” (Participant 25).
Environmental risk management	3	“So, we tried to still work on pre disaster preparedness and mitigation. So, some of our beautification projects are environmental, we’re trying to reduce the complications of stormwater flooding. So, we’ll do bioswales, rain gardens and some DIY style projects, we can actually help filter out that water so it will not enter somebody’s home, for example or the [inaudible 00:08:47] on a small grassroots scale” (Participant 7).
Financial preparedness	3	“And then we, a few years ago, said, “We really have to dedicate some money to doing disaster preparedness.” And just working with them through scenarios, and really thinking about how to support the mayor’s office of Homeland security, and FEMA even…. And we did it in a way so that we could also, we knew that they wanted pre-positioned funding, and preregistration to get grants faster, but we used the process also to document it, and then tell our board, “Look, the request right now is that we have money in the fund, and all the information ready so that we can just press a button and make grants within 48 h for disaster.” So, we went through that profit, set it by the board. And for the last couple of emergency events, preregistered grantees got money very quickly” (Participant 25).
Post-disaster
Distribution of food and water to survivors	5	“We’ve done a number of things and helping our clients and constituents with disaster preparedness, anywhere from providing bottled water and other products needed in case of a disaster. Whether it be a hurricane, tornado, flooding, things of that nature. We’re still doing that. We’ve also engaged with other non-profits in the community to support food distribution, and this is something we’ve done before, particularly doing tones of crisis, which could be a disaster” (Participant 1).
Debris removal and remodeling	3	“And then post disaster primarily reduce short term recovery. So, which would generically include debris removal, pulling bricks limbs, whatever that might be from the property or roadway. Gutting homes if they do get floodwater. So tearing out drywall and wet material to help that homeowners get back to a fresh start. And then we let our other partners take over for the renovation and remodeling of the flooded home. And then also with private residences, public facilities that may need help getting up on their feet. So again, schools, parks, gardeners, rec centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, other nonprofits” (Participant 7).
Mental health services	3	“I mean, there are certainly clients that have had to deal with different types of disasters, natural, man-made, and that does come up as part of the work. I don’t have a percentage, but it certainly does come up. It’s not always the referral issue, but it does become a part of the work” (Participant 26).
Rescue and recovery	3	“So, we did an initial focus on getting people safe. How do we fund efforts and coordinate those rescue operations, and so we’re really involved in helicopter evacuations and funding other efforts that would get people from their flooded homes” (Participant 16).
Health services	2	“Once we were able to get back into the city, we would do personal care type of items and distribute those. And then we moved from there to a medical mission. So, we did mobile healthcare throughout the city.” (Participant 9).
Fund raising	2	“So, after Katrina, when much of New Orleans of course was very severely impacted, and populations relocated, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation became a really central part of the response. In fact, the greater New Orleans Foundation was co-housed with us for a period of time in Baton Rouge, and we raised $44 million from people all over the country and world in order to work on rebuilding across South Louisiana” (Participant 16).
Follow up with evacuees	1	“Another thing we did during Katrina, well, we made sure that, some of our clients were in a safe place in different states. NAMI and affiliates, based in New Orleans, we made contact with the family members of the consumers to make sure they were safe. But some of them, we just could not contact for the craziness of Katrina. But some of them, we did contact and keep track of, to make sure they were doing okay. Also, for Katrina, our Westbank NAMI, the New Orleans Branch affiliate of NAMI, has two branches, one in New Orleans, Louisiana Avenue, and one in Jefferson Parish, which is Harvey, which addresses Jefferson and New Orleans communities” (Participant 7).