As Hurricane Helene approaches landfall in the Florida Gulf Coast, ALAN is busy preparing, and we are encouraging all of our partners to do the same.
With that in mind, we’d like to share five pre-storm takeaways that we feel are essential for you and your organizations to be aware of. They’re listed below, and we hope you’ll find them informative.
ALAN’s Disaster Micro-Site is also where we share key details about ALAN’s storm activation measures, current situation reports, and how you can support our relief efforts.
Because this has the potential to be an especially destructive storm, we encourage you to visit ALAN’s Supply Chain Intelligence Center, where you’ll find resources to keep you in the loop about everything from Helene’s latest path to how local and regional transportation infrastructure is being affected.
As always, all of us at ALAN are hoping that this storm will be much less severe than predicted and that any damage to life, health and property will be minimal. At the same time, we are grateful for the many good people like you who continue to invest in our work. We ask that you help us prepare to respond by making a financial donation today. Even a seemingly small contribution can go a long way in ensuring we can deliver critical aid to those who need it most.
Sincerely,
Kathy Fulton
Executive Director
Getting Ready For Hurricane Helene: ALAN’s Five Key Takeaways For Your Organization
1. Make personal safety a priority.
If you or your locations are located anywhere near Helene’s path, be sure to monitor the National Hurricane Center and your local National Weather Service forecast for real-time details. And please, don’t ignore any safety warnings that pertain to you or your personnel. This is expected to be a major hurricane with winds of up to 115 miles per hour, which means its potential impact is not to be taken lightly.
2. Get the latest detailed information about storm-related road closures, facility closures and other supply chain impacts by visiting ALAN’s Supply Chain Intelligence Center at https://www.alanaid.org/map/.
It should tell you most of what you need to know. But should you need additional information, please contact us at https://www.alanaid.org/contact/. Time permitting, we will do our best to work with our emergency partners to get you an answer.
3. View the latest requests for logistics support by going to the “Active Logistics Needs” section of our Disaster Micro-Site at https://www.alanaid.org/operations/.
Over the past few weeks, we have been communicating with various emergency management and non-profit partners regarding hurricane needs for Beryl, Debby, and Francine. Although there are no “open” requests for Hurricane Helene at the moment this situation could quickly change as the storm makes landfall. In fact, in previous years, most of our requests have come several days or weeks after hurricanes have hit. So stay tuned and stay ready – because as requests for transportation, warehousing, volunteers and material handling equipment come in, we will be posting them promptly.
4. Request or offer support. If you are a non-profit, tell us what you anticipate needing by making a request at (www.alanaid.org/request-support). If you are a business, tell us how you can help by making a “pre-offer” for transportation, warehouse space, equipment, expertise or services at https://www.alanaid.org/how-to-help/.
We find such information to be hugely helpful, because it helps us better plan our response. Knowing what is needed and who can help allows us to move quickly to support the most urgent needs. We’ll confirm all of the information with you and match offers with needs that fit.
5. Be mindful and demure in how you support disaster relief activities. Don’t self-deploy to disaster-affected sites, and please don’t participate in product collection drives.
Although the intention behind both of these activities is good, they often create more challenges than they solve, because they tend to get in the way of responders who are working to save lives – and add confusion to an emergency supply chain that is already under tremendous strain. If you’re looking for a meaningful way to help, consider making a financial contribution to ALAN or a humanitarian organization of your choice. Such donations will be much more useful and efficient – and far more likely to actually reach storm survivors.
