Aide et questions fréquentes

A resource for everyone who cares about or needs disaster relief, social services, and solidarity [community] oriented organizations.

We're a group of volunteers who had been supplying semi-trailers of supplies to the Hurricane Katrina disaster zones in the US starting in 2005. We started this Disaster Relief Database to help track what sites needed what supplies/volunteers, etc. We've since expanded our focus to the entire world and have stopped shipping supplies. Instead, we focus on gathering information about where the needs/supplies/volunteers are and listing them in this database. We also list "lists". We don't feel a need to try and list things online that other people are already listing. So for example, homeless shelters in the US. There are already orgs which maintain online lists to help people find shelters. So we list their website. If you are reading this, you are viewing the NEW database app, released in 2026 with updated code and functionality. For more of the history and a view of our old, original database app, see www..ReliefDatabase.org

In a time of crisis, information needs to be organized and available in real-time for everyone who is helping. Putting it in a public place helps the people who need it most. The web is a public space that can reach a lot of people. Anyone that has information can use this site or other sites to distribute that information to workers and/or the public. If you work with an agency or an established non-profit, please consider recommending that we add your organization to our database and/or correct information that we already list.

It helps existing agencies when we can help point people to get help.

It's a sort of dorky name. But it was late at night and we'd been organizing emergency supply deliveries for days after Hurricane Katrina struck the southern part of the US with millions of people in need, tens of thousands without basics...water, medical, etc. So with practicaly no sleep in the middle of the night, and pressure to put our needs lists online as soon as possible, we sort of had a Star Trek moment, beam me up! and thought of "the Citizen Action Team" as in "Citizens of the World Unite!" to help ourselves. And then of course, there's our sister-URL "CitizenCommandCenter.org", which we'll be integrating soon. Consoles and Dashboards Unite!

Development of the database in its current form began on September 29th, and the database was released to the public on October 17th, 2005.

Yes, we are totally committed service-oriented people. We are not going anywhere. The site is here for your use. Of course, we welcome donations and for people to help maintain it! If you want to help, please let us know. The site costs about $55/month for the server/hosting cost. We are all volunteers with no other direct expenses for the database itself.

The database attempts to figure out the physical location of a facility based upon its address. However, not all addresses are available. For example, some people organize out of their own homes and do not want to provide a physical locadtion. Also, if the address was not entered properly, the database may not be able to look it up.

For the address lookup to work, the address needs to be entered so that the first line looks like '123 Some St'. The city and state also need to be correct, of course.

If you see facilities without maps, double-check that their address is entered correctly. If you think a facility has a correct address, but it still doesn't show up with a map, E-mail us, and we'll see if it can be fixed.

If you find a facility without a proper address, and you know the correct one, please send it to us!

This is because all the dates are stored internally in UTC, so that we can handle differing timezones. Unfortunately, the dates aren't yet displayed in users' local timezones, so times and dates generated by the system may appear 'in the future', not accounting for their timezone. Dates/times which are displayed in UTC generally indicate this, e.g.:

Updated At: Fri Oct 07 20:27:13 UTC 2005

All *user entered* dates, such as on loads, are displayed without modification, and with no timezone indicator -- these are presumed to be in the local timezone of the relevant facility, e.g.:

Estimated Time of Arrival: Wed Oct 26 23:00:00 2005

If you think you've spotted a problem with date handling, where it doesn't obey these rules, definitely let us know about it.

Currently, only database administrators can delete facilities and items. If you spot a duplicate facility or item, please E-mail us. If you've accidentally entered a duplicate facility, you can change its name to 'DUPLICATE -- PLEASE DELETE'; but also still E-mail us to make sure we notice.

When E-mailing us about a duplicate facility, it's helpful if you click on the facility, then copy the URL from your address bar into the E-mail. That way we know exactly which one you're talking about. If you have trouble doing this, though, don't worry about it -- just send us an E-mail with the name and location of the facility.

It's normal for an item to be in multiple categories; for instance, Latex Gloves are in both Cleaning and Medical, because they're used for both purposes.

When entering needs or availabilities, you only need to select the item ONCE, and you can select it from EITHER category. Your entry will then automatically show up in all categories which that item belongs to.

If an item is listed more than once under the SAME category, it's an actual duplicate item. Please use ONLY the copy of the item which shows up FIRST in the list, and E-mail us about the duplicate so we can fix it.

If there are already some entries using the duplicate, don't worry about it -- we'll move those to the other copy when fixing it, they won't be deleted.

If you enter new items using the Quick Needs/Availability Creators, those items will initially be placed into the special category 'New/Unassigned'. Periodically, CAT members review the new items in 'New/Unassigned' and place them into appropriate categories. You don't need to worry about categorizing items yourself, although you're welcome to E-mail us with suggestions.

Periodically, items in 'New/Unassigned' are moved into more specific categories, or merged with existing items. If you were using an item in 'New/Unassigned' and it's vanished, you can find the item using the search tool in the categories/items button above.

If you can't find your item, or think it's been placed in the wrong categories, please feel free to E-mail us.

When calculating the distance between two facilities, the database uses their latitude and longitude, if it was able to find them using the addresses, and figures out the distance between them "as the crow flies". This may be a lot shorter than the driving distance! Always look at a map to double-check locations and routes; the distance calculations are intended as a rough guide only.

Yes, and no. Anyone can sign on and post a bogus facility. So far in over 20 years, we've had ZERO cases of such nonsense. We are betting that the benefits of allowing everyone to post will far outweigh the risk of having some jerk post something that is intentionally false or offensive. We rely heavily on faith, community, and the goodness of others, as without those principles this site could not exist.

That said, we're not naive, and have taken every reasonable precaution against vandalism. Except by specific request, users can only modify facilities they created -- so if you take the time to enter some data, somebody else can't come along and mess it up. Deletion of records other than need/availability data can only be performed by administrators, and the same goes for messing with categories and other structural things.

We want as much data to be viewed/accessed by the public as possible. The only data that's protected from the public's view is private personal names/contact information.

The security of the backend systems is well up to the standards of any private-sector corporation. This security protects the private data [like personal names/contact infor] that is entered and stored in the database. If you want more information about security, please contact us and we will be happy to discuss the technical aspects of how we have designed the IT infrastructure to be secure.

We want you to use the site as if your own people designed and built it for you. Please tell us what you want. If it is feasible, we will change the site to accomodate your request.