Investigating relief

info submitted by the University of Arkansas

An Honors College Fellow at the University of Arkansas has pulled together a best practices manual based upon her review of disaster relief efforts in Joplin, Mo.

Joplin took a direct hit from a powerful EF-5 tornado on May 22, with more than 125 people killed and thousands displaced in the southwest Missouri town of 50,000 people.

This summer Katharine Branscum, an Honors College Fellow at the University of Arkansas, used her studies in supply chain management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business to document best practices for faith-based disaster relief.

Branscum served as an intern for World Vision, a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization, and she interviewed Joplin-area pastors to get an up-close view of what went right – and wrong – in Joplin. Take bottled water, for example. Though needed immediately after the tornado hit, there were more than 1 million bottles in Joplin four weeks later, with no place to store them.

“If the bottled water sits out in the sun, the water reacts with the plastic,” Branscum said, rendering the water undrinkable. “You only need water until the pipes get fixed,” she added. The truckloads of used clothing sent to Joplin also presented logistical challenges for area churches.

“There were gyms filled with piles of clothing that needed to be sorted by size and gender,” Branscum said, adding quietly, “People don’t want used clothing; they want to start a new life.”

Gift cards that channel funds into the local economy are more helpful in the long run. “It’s all about the money flow,” she said.

Branscum is working to distill information gleaned from interviews and a four-inch binder of disaster relief materials from World Vision into a 20- to 30-page disaster relief logistics handbook. The handbook will include a day-by-day disaster relief timeline, a description of key roles such as volunteer coordinator, and lists of supplies that are needed, and not needed.

“We’re looking for a simple guide – a checklist that we can put in the church’s hands, with brief explanations on how to set up a situation room, organize volunteers and go into action,” said Ron Maines, who is responsible for World Vision tornado response in Joplin. “Katie has jumped right in, and we hope that the checklist she’s working on will help answer the main question. What they want to know is what do we need to do next.”

Ultimately Branscum plans to document her work in her Honors College thesis, which will be directed by Matthew Waller, chair of the newly minted supply chain management department in Walton College.

Branscum plans to expand on her Joplin experience by interviewing pastors who responded to the Mississippi River floods and Hurricane Katrina, and individuals in Japan who provided relief following the recent earthquake and tsunami.

Branscum also serves as the media director for Students in Free Enterprise, an outreach program sponsored by Walton College that is open to all students. She hopes to find a way to involve the group in providing relief to Joplin, perhaps by helping “mom-and-pop” businesses rebuild or managing excess gifts-in-kind.

A graduate of Jonesboro High School, Katharine Branscum is the daughter of Mike and Nancy Branscum of Jonesboro, Ark.