Anybody got suggestions / links?
There's also a lot of mutual aid offers and advice on r/boulder for those affected
— Julie The Guardian steals tweets Blommaert (@drjulie_b) December 31, 2021
Facebook, not ideal, but given the circumstances:
If you lost or found pet in the Marshall Fire, join this FB group: https://t.co/5EoPBvjBOz
If you need help or can offer help evacuating large animals, join this FB: https://t.co/Q7Teqd0EPp#BoulderFires #BoulderCounty #MarshallFire
— Amanda Schreier (@BackroadsRamblr) December 31, 2021
Ken
In these cases it’s often as important to know where not to send money. For example last night Starfish said not to give to the Community Foundation of Boulder because they have a poor record at passing along donations.
Victor Matheson
My childhood home burned down. My elderly parents just moved out after 50 years right before covid. I actually learned the house was gone when I saw a picture of it engulfed in flames on the news. Given the fact this was the Marshall Fire and my address was on Marshall drive, I wasn’t too hopeful.
My parents also had to give up their big dog (a crazy rotter-doodle) to move into their retirement community. The adopted dog parents lost their home as well, but the pets are safe.
Baud
@Victor Matheson:
Wow. Glad the dog is safe.
Martin
Trying to get ahold of my aunt and cousin. They both live in Louisville, and evacuated. I’ve not seen any photos from their neighborhood, but the one heat map from the fire I’ve seen doesn’t look good for either of them. They would have evacuated, but not sure where to.
We’ve got them covered for assistance.
The confirmed homes destroyed from the photos videos I’ve seen are the neighborhood between Harper Lake and Via Appia Way. My aunt is about half a mile east of there.
Feathers
@Victor Matheson: Happy for the pup. Hard seeing on Twitter last night that this happened so fast people couldn’t get home to their animals. Who thinks that you’re going to take the kids to Chuckie Cheese and your whole neighborhood is going to burn down while you’re gone?
MazeDancer
@Victor Matheson: Oh, how terrible. But so glad all are safe.
Martin
Boulder OEM has links for donations on their website.
https://www.boulderoem.com/emergency-status/
Debg
Denver Post has a list and links:
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/12/30/boulder-county-wildfires-how-to-help/
TaMara (HFG)
So Boulder Office of Emergency Management has put up links of how and where to donate.
https://twitter.com/BoulderOEM?s=20
https://www.boulderoem.com/
Those would probably be the best organizations since they will be vetted by OEM.
TaMara (HFG)
@Feathers: This has haunted me since yesterday. Also, a boarding facility had minutes to evacuate and some of the dogs escaped. I was relieved this morning that they found all the dogs and they have all been reunited with their owners.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Boulder County sheriff at the news conference just gave out this link:
https://www.coloradoresponds.org/
Starfish
YMCA of Northern Colorado is hosting people who lost their homes.
Sister Carmen feeds the homeless, and they are going to be providing services to these folks.
Boulder Humane Society is supporting people with pet food needs.
Both Jefferson County Fairgrounds and Boulder County Fairgrounds are hosting large animals.
Starfish
@Ken: A lot of people are giving to the community foundation. They are a larger organization. Within an hour or two of the fires, several organizations were sending out fundraising asks on behalf of the community foundation. They are able to activate quickly, and that is a feature.
But they are also a large organization with large organization bureaucratic traps. In the aftermath of the shooting earlier this year, the state set up a fund, and the community foundation set up funds.
Those organizations were doing things like means testing funds or siphoning off funds to other causes, so I was hesitant to add more money to organizations that did stuff like that.
Our local credit union set up a fund for the people impacted by the shooting, and that was going to the people directly impacted by the shooting as opposed to being more spread out to other things.
The organizations I listed above are probably doing things to help right now. I know the YMCA is housing people. I don’t know any of the Humane Society folks or what exactly they are doing.
I was involved in a local leadership program a few years back where we met a lot of non-profit leaders, and I met a number of folks involved with a number of the local non-profits.
I hope that clarifies my thinking a little.
Starfish
I just got an email from the local democrats suggesting Colorado Pet Pantry as a place to donate.
They also linked to this Facebook group of people taking care of horses.
A Ghost to Most
Condolences to all who were affected. We just have some fence posts to buy, and fence to repair. The Xmas lights are shredded. No keeping them on until the Stock Show this year.
Starfish
@A Ghost to Most: I am so sorry. Our neighbor’s fence is down too.
Starfish
The email requesting funds for the credit union was apparently a mistake. They took down the link and apologized.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
According to my friend who lives nearish the fires – right now people simply need aid in just getting out of the path of the fire.
greenergood
Thank dog that so many people are willing to donate to folks who’ve lost everything or nearly everything. I cannot imagine what that must be like, but I’m starting to consider a run-for-your life kit and what I’d bring, even though I don’t live in a particularly dangerous area (w. coast of Scotland), and I’d probably pack family photos as a major priority – because. On BBC World Serivce, there was a story about refugees coming over on dinghies to the UK from France – people who’d travelled in incredible peril from Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, sub-Saharan Africa, etc. – and all trapped in the UK’s ‘refugee rescue’ programme. There was one young man from Syria, who had _nothing_ but a photograph of his mother who’d been murdered in Syria. That is what he kept close to his heart through thousands of miles of journeying and the perilous crossing of the Channel. That the country I live in – the UK – is assiduously deporting refugees is just heartbreaking.
Second point: the RNLI (Royal Naval Lifeboat Unit) is the major rescuer of refugees coming across the Channel from France – refugees from numerous countries. I am grateful to the RNLI, but just want to stress one point: the RNLI is the most-donated-to charity in the UK. No other charity in the UK compares to its aggregation of funds – probably mostly due to ex-Navy donators, civil sailors, etc. and even more so, the idea that the UK is an ‘island nation’. But the UK Government could easily fund the RNLI as part of Royal Navy exercises. The same happens here in Scotland (and in England/Wales as well) that charity-dependent Mountain Rescue begs for contributions, while most of their air-flight searches are conducted by the RAF, which should just be using them for training purposes. I’d be interested to learn if there’s an equivalent in the US – do US military forces do civilian search and rescues based on charity funds, or do they conduct such operations as part of a military budget? Or do they do them at all, if the searches are civilian? Maybe leave to the local police?
HumboldtBlue
Flashbacks to the Paradise Fire all over again.
Complete and utter destruction.
HumboldtBlue
@greenergood:
The Coast Guard handles all sorts of emergencies including water rescue, mountain and cliff rescue, and they do it in all sorts of regions and that’s their dedicated role (funded by DOD, Coast Guard used to be under the control of the Treasury, they were the original revenue runners battling smugglers while also saving lives on beaches).
The Coast Guard grew out of the original U.S, Life-Saving Service in Massachusetts.
The National Guard (Army and Air Force) is also called out in situations such as this and those state assets are used in natural disasters, it’s one of their primary roles.
sab
@HumboldtBlue: National Guard has been called out to meet our overstresed hospitals in Ohio. Only 10% are medically trained. Other 90% can do security and routine paperwork and basic triage.
Kind of like in every catastrophe.
A Ghost to Most
@Starfish: Meh. It’s more a pride thing. I couldn’t get 4 in posts in 2020, only 3.5 in. That’s the part that suffered. This years’ chunk with 4 in posts is good. If that fire had started at my house, it might have burned all the way to Denver. You folks ok?
HumboldtBlue
@greenergood:
I’ll also add there are private rescue groups all over the country such ski patrols, search and rescue teams (we have two volunteer groups in Humboldt County who do yeoman’s work in rugged terrain) who their funding through donations.
By the way, the history of RNLI is fascinating, I went down a rabbit hole earlier this year and watched several videos about the organization and it’s extraordinary work.
greenergood
@HumboldtBlue: So rescue is not considered a charity duty, but one that adheres to the missions of the various military groups – i.e. Coast Guard, Navy, Police, etc. This is interesting to read. I think that all rescue efforts that require military-type intervention – helicopters, boats, etc. – should be designated as military exercises, rather than people forking out thousands to rescue organisation. The military has enouth money to do these things and call them ‘exercises’. The money could be better distributed to other charities, like, e.g., refugee groups, once the Navy rescues desperate refugees from flimsy dinghies trying to cross the Channel in December weather. The disgrace is the same here as in the US – the people who are fleeing, are running from violence that has been orchestrated by the US/UK – either by war (Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq) or by corruption (drug cartels in Central America, whose main clients are Americans), and meanwhile the US/UK are the most ardent persecutors of refugees. A few other countries are pretty ardent as well – Myanmar, China, Poland/Hungary, but we led the way in how to do it …
HumboldtBlue
@greenergood:
States and counties also fund Police and Sheriff search and rescue teams for water, mountains, etc. and they are augmented by Federal assets when needed along with volunteer groups.
Starfish
@A Ghost to Most: My friend on the south side of town did not have power all night. They traveled to Loveland and stayed in a hotel overnight. Power was restored earlier today, and they came back home before the roads got icy.
A number of the people I was concerned about did not lose their houses.
People were asking about ABL, and the storage center with her stuff did not burn down. Her coworker’s house did not burn down.
With a fire that moved that fast, it is amazing that they have not found any casualties.
A lot of us were very fortunate.
Starfish
@greenergood: It is a mixture.
Here is an example from earlier this year. A hiker was injured in very steep terrain. There was a volunteer rescue effort AND support from the state national guards, but due to weather conditions and the terrain, the injured hiker died, and it was a body recovery.
A Ghost to Most
@Starfish: Very lucky. We never lost power, even though Excel kept sending us texts that we did.
evinfuilt
I recommend giving to Boulder Humane, my pupper Shannox comes from there. They’re a lovely group and really help the community. It hurts seeing a neighborhood I’ve driven by more times than I can count reduced to ash. Today I spent the morning repairing my fence and my neighbors and feeling lucky. Knowing that I have a friend who has no home to go to today, but has many places to stay till something is worked out. 2021 knew how to end truly apocalyptically. I thought it was scary enough with a bushfire just a couple miles from my house a few days ago, if that one had happened yesterday, I could have been homeless today. The wind was just that insane.