Spontaneous Order Leads Tuscaloosa Tornado Relief Via Talk Radio
By David Beito • Wednesday May 4, 2011 8:18 AM PDT • 4 Comments
As many of you know, I teach at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. I really appreciate all of the emails and calls asking how I fared in the tornado. We are fine as are all our family and friends. The tornado by-passed Northport (where I live) entirely. It also spared the University of Alabama. Many areas in the city and suburbs, however, look like postwar Berlin including the communities of Alberta and Holt.
There is a more positive side to this story, however, that deserves more emphasis. The outpouring of volunteers and donations is not only inspiring and effective but extremely decentralized. The two local talk-radio stations, plus another, owned by Clear Channel are on the air with a simulcast from 8:00 to 8:00 to serve as an informal clearing house for relief efforts. The station that started this effort has only three employees (who were normally not on air) and it has preempted the normal programming.
Typically, someone calls in to the host and expresses a need for a particular area or group. Ten minutes later they call back to say that ten people showed up on their doorstep. Those coordinating relief often specify that they are short on particular goods and have too many others, thus allowing givers to tailor the donations. The broadcasts have informed me of several opportunities to be of help. You can listen in at WRTR 105.9 FM, and look at the talk-radio Facebook, here. Be prepared to be emotionally moved. Just last night, a worn-out informal relief coordinator in a trailer park, who needed to see her ailing mother in Mississippi, called for help. The Hispanics at the park were afraid to contact anybody about their needs. Volunteers (including two nurses) rushed to the scene.
Although most of the relief effort starts with individuals who weigh in on their own, churches are playing a key role in coordinating it. I don’t know if a more secular city would fare nearly as well.
Tags: Charity, Civil Society, Culture, Disaster Management, Entrepreneurship, Media, Morality, Religion, Welfare 
After the tough story of devastation, how refreshing it is to learn that people are quickly responding to announcements for help. Instead of focusing on the negative, they realize the benefits of giving.
And that will make the givers and receivers both stronger. G-d bless.
Brain | May 4, 2011 | Reply
This is very similar to what happened in Nashville last year, and yes—I do think the type of people who live in the area helps tremendously.
bondservant | May 4, 2011 | Reply
Are they allowed to do that without being sanctioned by the League of Community Organizers, aka LOCO?
League Comish | May 5, 2011 | Reply
This was very much the story in Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina a few years ago. In the vast rural hinterlands of South Mississippi, where my family lives, transportation, communication, and state authority were effectively cut off for several days, and seriously curtailed for weeks. Despite that, society, far from breaking down, flourished, as rednecks with chainsaws on four-wheelers and an organic sense of community and social responsibility got out and cleared the roads and debris off of neighbors’ houses. In the aftermath people came from all over the continent to help rebuild—without being ordered to, coordinated by a central agency, or anything else. Of course, the statist, corporatist media focused as much as it could on hyped-up stories of violence in New Orleans—violence, which, as it has turned out years later, was mostly the result of police aggression, and was vastly over-hyped (remember how many bodies were supposed to be rotting in the Superdome?).
Jonathan | May 7, 2011 | Reply