Bame's study revealing unmet needs of
evacuees during 2005 Gulf Coast storms

 

Data collected by Sherry Bame, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M, and a team of students is providing — for the first time — a clear picture of the unmet needs of evacuees in Texas fleeing Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005.

The study, "Unmet Needs During Disaster: Demand for 2-1-1 Information & Referral in Texas During Katrina-Rita, 2005" is funded with a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

2-1-1 is a nationwide number for people with nonemergency needs, connecting callers with services such as food banks, clothing providers, shelters, rent and utility assistance, and services for the elderly, ill, disabled, or those unable to afford existing community resources. In Texas, 2-1-1 is an integral part of the state’s emergency management system.

"We're talking about unmet needs of people who are having trouble getting access to disaster services," said Bame. "The Red Cross takes care of people at shelters, the Salvation Army takes care of people at food kitchens, the Federal Emergency Management Agency takes care of housing. What we're studying are the people who can't get access to those services."

Data were coded from more than 635,000 records of calls to Texas' 25 regional 2-1-1 centers before, during and after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The data were then compared to more than 1.25 million 2-1-1 calls during the 2008 hurricane season with Texas storms Dolly, Edouard, Gustav and Ike.

"Based on the data, homeland security, social services, health care agencies and disaster managers will need to rethink the time frame for evacuation to support evacuation destinations," said Bame.

She said the data revealed that two-to-three weeks after each hurricane’s landfall, unmet needs increased in evacuation communities after disaster responders and volunteers left. These communities, she said, were already struggling to keep up with their own residents’ needs competing with disaster victims for help.

Among other findings the project revealed specific numbers on the total volume of 2-1-1 callers in Texas from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31, 2005, a comparison of the number of calls for Rita and Katrina before, during and after landfall, and the number of unmet transportation, housing, food, and health needs by evacuees in Texas.

When Rita headed toward the Gulf Coast, emergency officials relocated Katrina evacuees to West Texas to accommodate those escaping Rita, and the 2-1-1 data shows what happened next, said Bame.

"In West Texas, communities didn't know what to do with them. Evacuees were without gas, public transit, any way to get around or to get back home. As far as transportation goes, they were really stranded," she said.

More analysis of the numbers will provide Bame with specific totals and locations of unmet needs including health and food, clothing and housing needs of evacuees.

Bame is sharing results from the study with directors of 2-1-1 programs across the country as well as the Department of Homeland Security.

She met with directors of 2-1-1 for United Way Worldwide and the Alliance of Information and Referral Systems in Chicago Feb. 23 to discuss its findings as well as design a study for sites in Texas, California, Florida and Midwestern states, part of planning a nationwide 2-1-1 disaster response and monitoring system.

Bame has high praise for her team of 16 graduate and undergraduate students, who are from the College of Architecture's departments of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning and construction science, as well as for student team members from the School of Rural Public Health, the Bush School of Government and Public Service, the College of Education and Ph.D. students in nutrition and computer science.

In February, Courtney Payne, a Master of Urban Planning student, traveled to the Department of Homeland Security’s science and technology summit at Los Alamos National Lab, New Mexico, to present the project's findings.

"Aside from your very professional explanation of the 2-1-1 project, your appearance at the conference helped to highlight what the research community in general and graduate students in particular are contributing to the homeland security arena," said Michael Dunaway, program manager of the DHS' community resilience and preparedness program, in a message to Payne after the conference.
 

Bame said 10 students who have worked on the project since 2008 made presentations at Texas A&Ms 13th annual student research week March 22-26. Two students will be presenting the study at national planning conferences in addition to Bame’s presentations at this year’s international Alliance of Information and Referral Systems conference.

 

- Posted: Mar. 24, 2010 -



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