October 11, 2005

7:45 a.m.---My first day on the job. Assigned to an ERV with L.B., driver. None of the folks I came down here with will be on the truck. Hope I do well, We’re going to Fat City, someplace in or near Metarie. No one can tell me much about it.
Woke up at 5:00 a.m., got into the bathroom and cleaned up before the rush. Slept okay---probably not as well as the night before last, but only because I was so dead tired back then.

7:30 p.m.---Back from the shower, clean, and amazingly, ready to pass out. The showers have only cold water, and it was my first time in them. Before that, we got back to the shelter about 6:15 and I had a hot meal, the first in 2 days. No, not true; I ate at 2:00 this afternoon as well.
We went out with our driver L., a very sweet young woman, and the routine runs like this:
Assignments are posted on the wall in the morning telling everyone which ERV they will be on and with which driver (usually 3-4 workers are assigned to a driver, but the crews and drivers are reshuffled to different trucks everyday.). You sign out for the day and head out to the parking lot to do a run-through of the ERV checklist: lights, gas, etc., and check the inside for what supplies you’ll need when you get to the yard.



You drive to the kitchen, the big outdoor kitchen run by the local 1st Baptist big motherfucking megachurch. They are very kind and cheerful. You pick up your supplies there in the yard, which include bread and fruit and snacks and water, then get the cambros, which are massive plastic heatproof coolers into which big bags of prepared food are poured. You haul all this stuff into the back of the truck and pack it in, in the most logistically-sound way, strap down the cambros, and you’re off. Sometimes you get MREs to supplement the food, but most of those go on the box trucks, which are driven around to specific sites where they and cases of water are handed out. You usually do 2 runs, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and take 300 meals out on each run.
Today we served fruit cocktail and beef stew in the first run (about 10 a.m.-12 p.m.), and chicken tenders & patties, green beans, and chocolate-acrylic pudding material in the second (around 3 p.m.-5 p.m.). After each run we take the ERV to the dumpsters across from the church and get rid of the garbage, then drive to the kitchen and unload the cambros, then either pick up more, or clean the utensils and head home, where we scrub down the inside of the ERV and get it ready for the next day. All day while inside the ERV you are cleaning cleaning cleaning up constantly, as food service is a messy business, especially in a moving vehicle, and constantly making bags of fruit and snacks to give out at the back of the truck, or filling foam clamshells with hot food to give out at the side window. You may do a stationary feeding, where you sit in one place till you run out of food, or you may do a mobile feeding, moving slowly through a neighborhood watching for anyone in need while the driver calls people out over the loudspeaker. The work is hot, heavy, and hard, and you are on your feet almost non-stop from the moment you enter the truck till you get back to the shelter.
This morning I helped R. bag oranges, apples, & bottles of water to pass out to the people who came for the meals. Then, when we had all the fruit bagged, I helped plate food into clamshells with L. and LD. R.’s wife N. served the food from the window of the ERV. It was much the same in the afternoon, except R. handled the fruit and water himself while I stayed in the truck plating food.



I helped load and unload, get rid of garbage, and set up and tear down. At the end of the day on our way back, we had to stop at a car wash and clean the truck. Usually the crew washes down the inside when they get back to the shelter, but it was mostly done when we arrived because while L. and I worked on the outside at the car wash, R., N. and LD. had done all but the floor inside.
Now I’m getting more tired by the minute. I’ll be sore tomorrow, and I have numerous bruises.
The exciting thing is that we (meaning not me, but a few experienced members of our shelter and one ERV) went into the 9th Ward of Orleans Parish for the first time today, with the long-awaited permission of the city. They hope that we will all be in there by the end of the week. We are tremendously excited. The 9th Ward is the very worst, ground zero of the destruction. People who’ve seen it say you’ll never forget it. We are needed desperately. They sent a team in today with double supplies and 3 mental health people. I imagine we’ll hear all about it at the briefing tomorrow. The managers hold a briefing meeting every morning prior to the day’s work, right after the assignments are posted. Managers are supposed to be riding through the neighborhoods determining where the need is, and in consultation with the drivers and ERV workers, make the decisions where to send us, how many runs to schedule, and how many meals we should take.
What was Fat City like? Like so much of the rest of the area, great swaths of destruction side by side with seemingly untouched buildings. A poor area, with titty bars on all sides (at least where we were), but some nice-looking restaurants, too. Not a place you’d like to be alone in, day or night. We pulled into an abandoned corner gas station, and people were already waiting for food before we were even set up. Some came by and sat in their cars just looking at us, waiting for curb service. We just looked back. Many were workers; the area is filled with restoration companies, insurance adjusters, “hurricane relief teams”, and others. Lots of Latinos, including migrants. Luckily, R. and N. are Puerto Rican and speak fluent Spanish, which came in very handy.
Signs pop up like mushrooms all along the highways and at intersections, advertising jobs, cleaning and restorations services, loans, or simply the fact that businesses that were here before the hurricane are back and re-opened again.



Places that look fine turn out to be closed or moved. Places that look devastated are putting handmade signs in the windows or on the streets that say “open”. Sometimes there’s no sense to it.

Everywhere they sell “Drive-Through Daiquiris”.

I was hoping I would lose weight from the work, but I eat like a horse.

Too tired to go on. Maybe I’ll turn in early.

October 10, 2005

8:05 a.m., Columbus Day, Staging Area---Dropped like a stone last night around 7:30 p.m. Somebody passing my cot said I looked like a dead woman. The shelter was in a church, set up for both volunteers and the displaced. The community room and meeting had been divided into 3 large sections: male, female, and co-ed. The women’s section had one tiny narrow window and was so dark I could hardly find my way around. I opted for the well-lit co-ed section, where there was food and a big-screen TV. Restrooms were very decent. Never did use the Hazmat shower, which everyone complained was too cold. Got a ride back to headquarters at 7:00 a.m. It’s now 8:15 and I’m still useless. I did get an official apron. I’m nervous about driving the box trucks—24 feet long. Maneuvering is an issue, and they’re diesel. Leave them running. Let them warm up a bit before turning them on. Told my assigner at Feeding I’d never driven anything that big. He didn’t seem concerned.
Now they’re saying lots of folks are needed again at Kenner. I get the feeling this may be a real horror show. More scary stories about it from others today.



10:45 a.m.---En Route to Kenner by way of Belle Chasse with a vanful of partners. S. and J. are the other women. R., J., S., JM., and A are the 5 men. They’ve been together since Montgomery, staying in hotels for 3 days, and have bonded very closely. Now I’m with them.
Our driver is a Latino from the Midwest who worked for Wal-Mart, and who asked them to transfer him down here so he could volunteer to help. They did, and now he works all day for them, and on his days off and after work he drives the van and does other odd jobs for ARC. And this is the kind of guy they underpay and force onto the Medicaid rolls.
R. says we’re supposed to drive food to the folks in the field. Supposed to be primitive conditions. He says this with relish.



1:30 p.m.---Drove past Kenner (Jefferson Parish) into New Orleans past the Superdome, on the very highway where they turned back the hurricane victims to keep them from “infecting” Gretna.



Too much mess to describe right now.



Came into Belle Chasse, stopped for lunch at Subway (one of the few places available to get food), arrived at the Best Western 10 blocks away from more “in-processing”. Waiting now for a ride back to Kenner. I’m getting to a point where I’m ready to give up trying to control anything---just send me somewhere and put me to work.

6:55 p.m., Susan Park Gymnasium---Kenner at last. This is the dream job. M., the shelter head-something, says it is the elite shelter. We will be doing ERV (Emergency Response Vehicle) work, delivering hot meals, water, and snacks to people, loading and unloading the trucks, and learning to drive them. They hope to be able to get into NOLA sometime, somehow, because currently the authorities refuse to let us cross into the parrish to deliver food.
Went through NOLA twice. Even though it’s bad here and everywhere we went, it’s nothing compared to the mess on the other side of the 17th St. levee, where we’ve been told the toxicity of the sludge combined with the rampant dead bodies of animals (and possibly still people) makes it dangerous to go near.

The atmosphere in the shelter, which is only for volunteers, is amazingly collegial, moreso than any place I’ve been so far. We eat mostly snack foods because the daily meals are from what goes out in the ERVs. Not a lot of micromanaging here. Cold showers in the shower truck. Pretty laissez-faire with the maintenance. Supposed to be over 80 of us here, but so far the number showing up has been sparse. Co-ed like Our Lady. My cot is much higher than yesterday, and it’s easier to get out of bed. Did I mention it’s inside a gymnasium? So if we want to get up a baseball game in the field beside us, it’s no problem. But watch out for the fire ants.
I helped feed some folks today on a brief run with M. to let the newbies see how it’s done. Just handed out MREs and water, but it felt really good. Just like this assignment.

How It Begins

Fuck you, George Bush.

Welcome to America.

The following is a diary (including a few blog posts) related to my stint as a volunteer that I kept after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. I spent a mere 3 weeks in NOLA, working for the Red Cross as one of the first people to enter the city limits in an ERV to feed the neighborhoods. I entered the Lower Ninth Ward on the 2nd day that the Red Cross was allowed to go into the city limits. In honor of the anniversary, I 'll be posting it over the next few weeks.

Friday, September 30, 2005
I Wish I Was In New Orleans

Yesterday I spent all day in an expedited training in preparation to go south to do disaster assistance work with the Red Cross in the hurricane areas. The standard Disaster Assistance training takes days, and normally volunteers require some local experience responding to disaster incidents, before they can be sent off to a national disaster site. But as the trainers told us, this is the worst natural disaster to have ever hit the U.S., stretching over more than 90,000 square miles, and many of the olf protocols and practices have been streamlined in order to get aid to the survivors as quickly as possible.

I still have to get my doctor to sign off on a health status form to assure them I won't keel over dead while I'm down there. We will probably deploy within 2 weeks, but likely much sooner, to either Baton Rouge, Biloxi, or Jackson (not certain about Texas). I don't know where I will be going once I get to the staging area I'll be assigned, nor what I will be doing exactly. I asked to do bulk distribution, that is, travelling around the damaged areas in an ERV to deliver meals and/or supplies and check on the survivors' needs (my first choice), or I may do feeding, sheltering, or casework. They told us we could request specialties, but need to be flexible, as we will probably do a little of everything as needed, and will be put wherever they need us.

Regardless of what happens, I doubt I will have access to a computer, or that I will have the time to post anything if I do. People who were there during the worst of it spoke at the training session to tell us what they experienced, and as has come out the last few days, the reports of dangers and shootings and criminal behavior were very much overblown. But they worked 20 hour shifts, and slept in sleeping bags on the shelter floors, and the temps were 95 degrees with 80% humidity and bugs from hell, and people are traumatized and angry and in need of much patience and understanding. The weather and the bugs, they told us, will probably be the same till mid to late October. We may stay in hotels--there is more of that now--and electricity and water are available more widely, or we may be put in shelters. The shifts will probably be closer to 8 to 12 hours than 20. It's much better now than it was a few weeks ago. Traveling down will require going light, so I'll pretend I'm going backpacking. Toilet paper, insect repellent, sunscreen, and every expectation of living in dirty clothes for much of the time...sounds like the woods to me, except that I will have my cell phone with me at all times, as they recommended.

Don't think that just because a few weeks have passed that things are almost wrapped up. On hearing about me going down, some have said, "Oh, I thought they stopped sending people down there." They haven't, obviously. They need volunteers badly. The Red Cross chapter I will be part of, Southeastern PA or SEPA, is the 2nd largest in the country, and they have only gotten 90 people down there since Katrina hit, for 2-3 week stints. That's just 2 waves of volunteers. They expect to need people at this level through December, and the holiday season may be a time of even greater need. In Philly alone they have been working with over 700 families displaced by the storms, and over 600 of those came up here on their own without government or NGO aid. Just this morning the NYTimes reported that FEMA has only been able to house 109 families from Louisiana, which means hundreds of thousands remain homeless and in shelters and hotels.

Anyway, that's the situation so far. I have my employers to thank for allowing me to take this time off when it comes, and for paying me for it while I'm gone; otherwise I would never be able to afford to do it. It's a gift that's been offered to me, so I want to make it a gift to the people of the hurricane. I know many, possibly most people, are unable to afford the time away from work or their families, and this kind of work is not for everyone. But if you can possibly do it, if you are physically and emotionally and financially able to do it, please consider volunteering. The need is desperate.
More updates as the time gets closer.

Thursday, October 06, 2005
Good Night And Good Luck
If you read my previous post on the subject, you know I signed up to do Red Cross disaster assistance for the hurricane survivors. Well, today I got the call, and at the ungodly hour of 5:40 a.m. on Sunday morning I'll be leaving Philly for Baton Rouge. That's the staging area I'm being sent to, and the place whose hurricane damage Bill Clinton, upon his visit there Tuesday, called "astonishing." I heard him talking about it on the radio, and in a few brief minutes he spoke more sense about the disaster and its ramifications for the region and the country than I have ever heard come out of George Bush's mouth in 5 endless years of stumping and photo ops.

Anyway, I'll be away for 3 weeks, so this my temporary sign-off till I get back in November. Lately I've missed a lot of great opportunities to write loud and bitter polemicals against the increasing stupidities of the age, and now it's too late. And I'll miss being here for my favorite month of the year, and my traditional October reading of stories of the supernatural on my daily commute. I'll miss my family, and my home, and my pets, and all the old familiar things that I usually bitch so much about. And it's kind of scary, not knowing what lies ahead, or what people will think of me when I get there.

Then I think that the people who suffered through the storms are also missing many of those same things, and the difference is that I'll get to come back to my life and my precious things pretty much the way I left them, whereas those folks will never be able to. And the people who have been uprooted and forced to disperse to strange places where they have no friends or family are also scared, and the stakes in not knowing what to expect are so much higher for them.

So I think I'll just shut up now, and wrap this up. Wish me bonne chance, and that I can make myself useful.

The Diary
Sunday, October 9, 2005---Philly to Atlanta

6:05 a.m.---Left home at 4:00 a.m. K. drove me to the airport. Missing everything. Yesterday felt like a condemned woman, trying to enjoy what she could for the last time. I hate to leave him alone for so long. Never been away from him this long in 30 years.
Flight was scheduled to leave @ 5:40 a.m. Even so, the number of people waiting to check in was horrendous, and they all had weeks’ worth of baggage. Luckily the Delta employee announced all those with “E” tickets could move over to the kiosk check-in, which was much sparser. However, the fancy computer self-service was not finding me, and it turned out the system had me as “R.”, and my driver’s license read as “R. X.”. Once that was cleared up I proceeded to the security check (take off your jacket, leave your shoes on), then on to the gate.
Last called, seat assignment at the last minute, and they overbooked. I feared the worst, but instead got a 1st class seat on the aisle (2C). Luxury! The flight to Baton Rouge, though, looks like steerage. At least it’s short.

9:45 a.m.---About ½ hour delay due to traffic on the runway. Lots of sleepy people on this flight. From the conversations overheard here and in the airport, many may be with the Red Cross or similar agencies. Other people seem to be flying home, or off to visit friends or family.
The clouds never fail to amaze me, no, enchant me, when I fly. Looking out on their endless banks you can forget what they are. They look so solid—sometimes like stretches of Antarctic ice and sea, broken by small icebergs. Or dark, hulking mountains on a horizon of lakes and hills. They are always remarkable.
K. prevailed on me to wear my anorak before leaving since it was cool and rainy, and all I could think of was how hot it would be in LA. But the trip has been chilly---the airports, the planes---and I’m glad to have it. I called him from Atlanta just to say high.
I’m so sleepy. I feel like I’ve been sedated.

12:15 a.m.---Staging area, Baton Rouge, at the old (read “ex-“) Wal-Mart. They put me in “Feeding” and sent me off to get my photo ID. I have to participate in the orientation before I can be assigned anywhere. I kept saying to the woman who processed me, I wanted to do Bulk Distribution. She said “They need you in Feeding.” So off I went. When I went to talk to the supervisor of that section, she said they could use people who could drive, and could I drive a box truck? Well, I said, yes, though I’ve never driven one in my life. But she didn’t say “Did you ever drive a box truck?” Only whether I could. Well, I’ll give it a try. It’s what I get for insisting on trying to have it my own way when I should have said “Put me where you need me.”
Walking around the place. It’s set up like some kind of cheesy health fair, but the breadth & depth of the services is amazing, for both infrastructuring and staff support. All our luggage is living under a couple tents inside a fenced area that looks to be where Wal-Mart once had its garden center.
I wander like a lost soul. Won’t know where I’m going until after orientation, and maybe not even then if I don’t get picked. Means staying in a shelter here overnight.

1:30 p.m.---Had a very nice BBQ chicken lunch thanks to the efforts of the local union (Electricians/AFL-CIO). Found out I’m going with 5 others to Kenner, just outside of New Orleans. From one staffer I heard it was bad: depressing, hard times for the folks there. On the other hand, other staffers said it was great: a hot shower truck, great food, next door to the police, near the NOLA airport.
This is the closest I’m going to get to being right inside the city. I’m pleased.
7:30 p.m.---Our Lady of Mercy Shelter, Baton Rouge. Since I had to complete orientation before leaving, and they couldn’t wait for me, they sent off a vanful of folks to Kenner without me. I got sent here to spend the night, and have to return tomorrow by 8:00 a.m. to the staging area (Headquarters) for a new assignment. They need to send people to Covington, directly opposite NOLA on Lake Ponchartrain, and as of 3:20 today, that looked the most likely. But who knows?
I had dinner with two older women this evening, both case managers, S., originally from Wales, and C., who told me she spent much of her time in Lafayette and at the Cajundome in a smaller version of the Superdome/Astrodome paradigm. They had her running a 70 mile circuit every day in a rental car, starting at 6:00 a.m. when she got up in her little motel room and set out, ending at the Cajundome to do 3 hour meetings with Family Services people. Got back about 10 p.m. Exhausting. She had the day off yesterday (we’re supposed to get 1 day off every 7 days), and spent it traveling around Lake Charles. She said the devastation was endless—for miles and miles, as far as they could travel, trees flattened or twisted into impossible shapes, building simply vanished!
A woman is just now saying she’s working at the River Center. Others saying I thought they were closing that. She saying no one told me. They’re down to 6000+ residents from over 11,000.
The food down here is all sugar and salt and fat. C., S. and I went to a place called Piccadilly’s a jumped-up cafeteria with pretensions to a clubbiness hopelessly destroyed by bad paintings and absurd Jetsonesque chandeliers.
Tired.