What the Ellen Show Got Right and What It Missed

I worked a storm. The show called. I went.

That is the short version, and every word of it is true.

Here is the longer one, because people ask me about the television part and almost nobody asks me about the part that mattered.

What the cameras got right

They got the pull right.

There is a moment when a person comes off a porch roof or out of a window and into your boat. Their hand closes on your forearm. Their weight shifts off the house and onto you. Nothing about that is staged. You could not fake it if you tried, and you do not need to.

Television found that moment and put it in front of a lot of people, and I have no complaint about that. None.

They also got the ending right, though nobody watching knew it at the time.

Backstage, they gave me a choice. The vacation or the check.

I took the check.

I bought rescue equipment with it. That equipment became Rescue the Universe. A few weeks later, Hurricane Michael came ashore and we were already working it.

So when I say the show got something right, I mean that literally. A television program paid for boats and gear that pulled people out of water for years afterward. From a six week old infant to folks in their eighties and nineties. I will be grateful for that as long as I am breathing.

What no camera can hold

Here is the honest part.

Television is a moment. Rescue is a calendar.

Before the moment there are about three days. Staging. Fuel runs. Batteries. Trailers. Checking straps. Charging radios that are going to fail anyway. Sitting in a parking lot two counties out, waiting on water to rise so you can move in behind it. Nobody films the parking lot.

During, most of it is not rescue. It is driving. Backing a trailer down a road you cannot see the bottom of. Waiting on a bridge. Getting turned around and going the long way. Hours of nothing, and then a few minutes you will carry for the rest of your life. During Florence we took fifty people out of the water in one day, and I promise you that day was still mostly driving and waiting.

After the moment there are years. That is the part I did not know to expect the first time. You come home and the grocery store is too bright. Somebody asks how the trip was and you say it was good. You do not have language for it yet, and you will not for a while. That is not weakness and it is not a story. It is what it costs, and it is worth saying out loud so the next volunteer is not blindsided by it.

Read that again. The pull takes minutes. The rest takes years.

I am not criticizing anybody for that. A camera cannot hold three days of staging. It was never built to. That is not television failing. That is television being television.

But since you are here, let me hand you the part the camera could not carry.

How to actually help after a disaster

This is the list I wish somebody had put in front of every good hearted person who ever wanted to do something. Save it. Share it when the next one hits.

1. Send money. Not stuff.

Cash is the only donation that can change its mind. A dollar can become diapers on Tuesday and diesel on Wednesday. A pallet of used clothes can only ever be a pallet of used clothes, and now somebody has to unload it, sort it, store it, and eventually haul it off.

During Harvey we helped raise somewhere around forty four to forty five thousand dollars in relief donations in a matter of days. That money moved the second it landed, and it moved wherever it was needed that hour. Stuff cannot do that.

If you only do one thing, do this one.

2. Give it to somebody local and verified.

Not the newest page you saw shared. Local churches, local food banks, county long term recovery committees, and volunteer fire departments in the affected county.

Look them up before you give. Check that the group existed before the storm. If it was created the same week as the storm, slow down and verify.

3. Do not send these things.

• Used clothing. Almost never needed. Always a burden.
• Home cooked meals and perishable food.
• Bottled water, unless a verified local group specifically asked for it.
• Expired anything.
• Random household goods. People are living in a shelter. They have nowhere to put a lamp.
• Yourself, unrequested. More on that in a minute.

4. Wait for the ask.

Every real relief operation publishes what it needs, and the needs change every single day. What they were begging for Monday is a problem by Thursday. Find the group, find their current needs list, and send that. Only that.

5. Do not self deploy.

I know this one stings, because the instinct behind it is good. But an untrained, unaffiliated person in a flood zone is one more body to feed, house, account for, and sometimes go get. Roads are needed for boats and fuel trucks.

If you want to be out there, plug in before the next storm, not during this one. Train with a local group in the spring. Then you are an asset in the fall.

6. Show up in week six.

Everybody helps in week one. Cameras are there in week one. Week six is when the driveway is still stacked with wet drywall and everybody has gone home. That is when a check, a truck, a chainsaw, or a hot meal actually changes a family and their whole month.

If you can only give once, give late.

7. If you know somebody who went, ask twice.

The first answer is always that it was good. Ask again in a month. Ask about the drive, not the rescue. You will be surprised what comes out.

The honest heart of it

The show did not miss anything on purpose. It showed the best few minutes of a very long thing, and those minutes were completely real.

What I want you to know is that those minutes only existed because a bunch of ordinary people gave up three days on the front end and carried something on the back end that was never going to make it to air.

That is not a complaint. That is the job.

I would do all of it again.

So here is my question for you. The next time a storm hits somewhere near you, which one thing on that list are you going to do, and who are you going to send it to?