| |
Reaction & Rescue
Saving Lives
Even as Hurricane Katrina was first raging across the Gulf Coast, some of the rabbis and staff of Chabad of New Orleans stayed behind with the remaining populace within the city proper, and in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, so as to continue providing comfort and assistance to the Jewish community in its time of need. Locals and tourists called Chabad for guidance. Food was brought to tourists that could not get out. Several visiting young girls were taken into the home of one of the Shluchim. (See the diary pages of this website.) As evacuation became inevitable and unavoidable, Chabad communication centers were immediately opened in neighboring cities in Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida to aid distraught evacuees. These centers – more than a dozen in number – all operated in heavy response mode. Most notable were the Chabad Centers in Houston, Memphis, Dallas, San Antonio, Nashville, Gainesville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Little, Rock, South Florida, Southern California, and New York.
One of the New Orleans Chabad Rabbis was walking throu gh the Houston Astrodome when his cell phone rang, “Hello Rabbi,” he could hear the panicky voice of a friend from Dallas whose elderly father was still in New Orleans, “my dad is in New Orleans and nobody can get to him.” The Rabbi took his father’s info and relayed it to Rabbi Mendel Scharfstein, the emergency response task force director in New York, who in turn relayed it to the Search and Rescue Team in New Orleans and within the day his father was out of harm and on a plane to Dallas. This is just one of the many amazing episodes in the story of Chabad’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Within hours of realizing the reality of the situation in New Orleans, Chabad recognized that there were people that were stuck with no way of getting out. To implement Chabad’s response, an emergency response task force was set up consisting of the New Orleans Chabad Shluchim, key staffers at Chabad Headquarters in New York and several consulting Chabad Shl uchim from around the country. Chabad immediately established a partnership with two “Search and Rescue” teams, TriState SAR and Metro NY SAR, under the leadership of James O’Connell and Ari Gruenzweig, on the ground in New Orleans. Two rabbinic interns, Levi Shmotkin and Mendel Druk, were deployed to the area to assist the teams and oversee operations from Baton Rouge. An em ergency bulletin was posted on every Chabad website in the country requesting names and contact info for people needing rescue in New Orleans. Scores of emails were received, verified and relayed to the professional SAR teams. In ten days more than 50 people were rescued from sure death, including many elderly individuals who were treated by the medics on t he team. The Chabad teams established a reputation for being able to rescue even the toughest customers who refused help from any other agency. In addition to the high level of competence and professionalism of the SAR teams, the visibly Jewish rabbinic interns served as a comforting presence to those being rescued.
The Chabad task force and ground operations team also ma intained communication with other Jewish agencies that were operating in t he area, most notably the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans. The also successfully rescued all of the Torahs from three Synagogues in New Orleans. The Torahs were brought to Houston under the care of Chabad of Texas until the congregations began functioning in New Orleans again.
As time went on, the focus shifted from rescuing surv ivors to burying the dead. Chabad’s Task Force engaged Rabbi Edgar Gluck, Chaplain for the New York Medical Examiner’s Office, to travel to New Orleans and assist in this area. Working with the federal and state officials, individuals were identified and families were notified. With the help of the two rabbinic interns, several deceased Jews were brought to proper Jewish burial.
|
