In the wake of Hurricane Ida, millions of people in New Orleans are without electricity and safe drinking water. Those of us who were lucky enough to evacuate before the storm are being told we can’t come home because the streets and the city aren’t safe yet. To make matters worse, for people stuck in the city and residents displaced by the storm alike, it’s hard to know where to go for help.
Most people tend to assume that when natural disasters strike, the government or giant nonprofits swoop in to save people but from what I’ve seen as a resident, it’s New Orleanians themselves — mutual aid volunteers as well as concerned individuals with the bandwidth to help — who do the heavy lifting. For the record, there are so many amazing groups and individual residents hell bent on helping our community recover, but well, they're extremely busy right now. A few of them took a break from their current grind to talk to me about how they've been able to help.
