When the rioters burned down Mobile, it caused a refugee crisis that America had not seen in years. Many citizens visited family in the country, or otherwise found places to run to, but most had no recourse when their homes, neighborhoods, and jobs burned down around them. That left hundreds of thousands of new homeless, with no Federal emergency services left to swoop in and help. It was a humanitarian crisis writ large. The Port of Mobile donated entire shipments of tents and garden sheds, along with tens of thousands of empty international shipping containers to act as temporary housing for the relief effort. The shipping containers in particular would become the standard housing unit in the Mobile area for years to come. Everyone who lived through the Second Great Depression in Mobile spent time in a container house, and that forever changed the nature of housing in the area.