[pyrnet] Fw: CHAT: Rescue Supplies Glut

["Barb Bowes" <bamb@monmouth.com>]

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Barb Bowes
Bo & Chelsea (Pyrs), Flopsy (Pyr Shep) & Machin (Doxie)
The more people I meet, the more I like my dog!


Goods Deluge the City and Sit Unused
By JIM DWYER NYTimes, 9/16/01

For the millions of people who are sending food, clothing and
supplies to
the city's relief effort, officials have one message:

No more, thanks.  Not now.

So much food has been donated that some is being dumped, uneaten.
New
clothing is filling warehouses as far as 90 miles away, in
Poughkeepsie,
N.Y.  Huge piles of bottled water are stacked along 14th Street,
outside the
Jacob K.  Javits Convention Center and near Chelsea Piers.  Tons
of dog food
have arrived for the animals helping in the search.

Volunteers are being told that for now, there's not much they can
do.

"I wish people would back off and pace themselves, because
there's going to
be work to do for months," Ken Curtin of the American Red Cross
said.
"Clearly, there are now more donated materials on hand than will
ever be
used."

In Hillside, N.J., where the Community Food Bank of New Jersey is
helping
with storage, 15 trucks arrived yesterday, following 25 that
arrived on
Friday.  Each one was packed directly to the floors, without
pallets,
meaning that forklifts could not be used.  Every bag or box had
to be
unloaded by hand, said Cathy McCann, the vice president for
operations of
the food bank.

"People are feeling helpless, they want to make food, they want
to feed it
right to the rescue workers," Ms.  McCann said.  "With all this
generosity,
though, we're almost creating a minidisaster."

Callers to the New York State hotline for donations - (800)
801-8092 - can
speak to an operator about making cash donations, but only after
they listen
to a tape-recorded message that says, "At this time emergency
response needs
for goods and services have been met."

Joe M.  Allbaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, also
said there was a good supply of food and clothing on hand.  "I
don't think
we need any," he said.

The only big-ticket need mentioned by any official was warehouse
space.  The
Salvation Army has 500,000 square feet of space and needs another
500,000,
to go along with the airplane hangar it is also using, said Maj.
Stephen
Langford, who is based at the Army's 14th Street building.

"We've had over 100 tractor-trailers here since Tuesday," Major
Langford
said.  "We had to shut down 14th Street on Friday because there
were so many
lined up outside."

The organization - which is providing close to 100,000 meals a
day, with
help from Whitson Foods - took extraordinary steps to make space
on 14th
Street, where food is piled along two sweeping staircases and
spills halfway
across the sidewalk.

At noon yesterday, a brigade of volunteers formed and passed
black plastic
trash sacks to a city sanitation worker, Gil Santos, who tossed
them into
the back of his garbage truck.  Many of them appeared to be
filled with used
clothing or loose bottles of water and packaged goods.

"They told us to come down here because they're trying to get rid
of the
older inventory of donated goods - it's just coming in so fast,
they can't
keep up," Mr.  Santos said.

Most of the donations have been of high quality, according to Mr.
Curtin of
the Red Cross, a veteran of relief efforts.  "Often the second
disaster is
the help you get - tractor-trailers of used clothing that no one
wants," he
said.  "Not this time."

In fact, New York's cup is running over.  From every state in the
union, and
from just about every continent, donated goods and volunteers
have been
rolling into the city, out of the goodness of millions of hearts.

One company sent 17,000 new T- shirts.  Wal-Mart Stores
dispatched a
tractor-trailer full of goods. Levi Strauss and The Gap have sent
clothing.
From Kroger supermarkets in Ohio came two tractor-trailers of
water.  With
no warning - not a happy surprise, said officials - 25 tractor-
trailers
arrived from Philadelphia.  Other trucks have been filled by
churches,
schools and radio stations.

Many of these efforts were launched after announcements in
midweek that some
commodities were needed; underwear, for instance, or work gloves,
both of
which are now in ample supply.

While these gifts present logistical problems, they are a balm to
a city
aching with loss, and also to people who make the offerings.
That goes, as
well, for the volunteers.

"It's the hallmark of this whole event," Mr.  Curtin said.
"People would
just like to get their hands on the rubble and do something."

That explains the scene at West and Clarkson Streets, where
scores of people
stand along one of the main routes to the trade center.  Tired of
watching
television and being turned away at volunteer centers, they toss
socks,
cigarettes, toilet paper, shirts, sandwiches, water and anything
else they
can think of at rescue workers.

The Clarkson Street gathering started with a few people Tuesday
night,
cheering and handing out water, and has grown by word of mouth.
Some hold
handmade "thank you" signs and American flags while others haul
in donated
food - Katz's delicatessen dropped off thousands of hot pastrami
sandwiches
- and pass it out to passing workers.

Many workers have stopped for cigarettes, socks and water, but
piles of food
have been ignored.  On Friday night, rats invaded and much of the
food was
thrown out.

Toland Washington, 47, a marketing analyst from Maplewood, N.J.,
predicted
that most of it would not go to waste.  "This is the beginning of
my healing
process," said Mr.  Washington, who escaped the
26th floor of 1 World Trade Center.

Most centers had no more room for new volunteers yesterday, but a
few were
put to work at the Red Cross headquarters on Amsterdam Avenue.
Shunpei
Okochi, 14, a sophomore at Stuyvesant High School, arrived at the
Red Cross
yesterday with a classmate.  Many students at Stuyvesant
witnessed the
collapse of the towers as they were evacuating their school,
which is just
north of the trade center.
Shunpei and a classmate spent yesterday loading supplies onto Red
Cross
trucks.

"It doesn't feel right to be at home, and just not do anything,"
said
Shunpei, whose school is not expected to reopen for several
weeks.

One small sign of how far-reaching the impulse to help was came
from Sam
Smyth, an Irish journalist. Dublin was shut down on Friday in a
day of
remembrance, and hundreds of thousands of people lined up to sign
Books of
Condolence in public buildings.  His own daughter, a teenager,
waited three
hours to sign a book, and took along two teddy bears that were
precious to
her as a little girl.  She was leaving them, Mr.  Smyth said,
with the
thought that they might again comfort a child.