Julia's Bloglet - Friday 7 October 2005

I'm in the final stages of preparing to leave for Portland for the marathon (warning: extremely annoying voiceover on that page), which is Sunday. I have nearly 19 hours of music in a marathon playlist (this way I can skip ahead whenever without worrying that I will run out of songs), more than enough energy gel in flavors I know I don't mind, a comfortable, breatheable race day outfit in the washer, and directions from mapquest. I am starting to get excited/nervous. My goal is to finish the race at all. If I can do it in the official 8 hour limit, I will be thrilled. If I can't, but finish anyway, I will still be thrilled. if I do not finish but make it at least halfway through I will be satisfied. Wish me luck! I probably won't see it until Tuesday, but it's nice to have anyway. _
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02:52:24 PM, Friday 7 October 2005

I thought it was my glass but the queen of the house had other ideas.

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01:42:20 PM, Sunday 2 October 2005

I love it when Katherine sends me stickers!

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08:13:34 PM, Friday 30 September 2005

After having thought more and done more looking into things online, I have determined that it is most likely do to a combination of hand sanitizer abuse while there, constant wearing of latex and plastic gloves, which made my hands sweat, and peeling garlic (which definitely hurt the fingertips --I got garlic blisters!). It seems like probably the top layers of skin just got too dried out and irritated. I also found out that sometimes people get athlete's foot on their hands, and while I haven't got it on my feet, and this most likely isn't it, it seems that the itchy dry feeling I have might be caused by something similar. I mean if I was contantly bathing in hand sanitizer and then suddenly stopped I can see how bacteria, viruses or fungus might have an easier time sneaking past my defenses. So, after looking into that, I saw a lot of recommendations for tea tree oil, as it seems to have lots of antimicrobial qualities.I'm really too busy to get into a doctor for at least a week unless it's a code red emergency sort of situation, so I'm going to pick up some lotions with tea tree oil in them and try that first. Thanks for all your comments. I know I am very probably not dying of leukemia. It's just the old researching symptoms making one into a hypochondriac thing. Have you never though your hangover headache might actually mean you have a brain tumor? _
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02:47:08 PM, Friday 30 September 2005

should I be worried about this or not?

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04:06:34 AM, Friday 30 September 2005

Since I've been back the skin on my fingers has started peeling off at an alarming rate. At first it was only on the tips of my thumbs, which had been particularly inflamed by all the garlic peeling. I didn't think anything of it until yesterday when I notice that other fingers were starting to peel, since then it seems to be spreading quickly. It doesn't particularly hurt, but it worries me nonetheless. Looking at online medical resources has as usual led me to no clear idea of what it could be, but a very hazy notion that I am probably dying of leukemia. Anyone got any ideas or advice? I will post a picture of my fingers next. _
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04:00:18 AM, Friday 30 September 2005

Before I left a lot of you asked me if I needed help in buying supplies, and I said that I would rather the money you had to give went to charitable organizations. As you may have gathered from my last entry though, I now have a reason to solicit donations. Two reasons, actually, whom I will call Miguel and Ana (not their real names). Miguel left Nicaragua after the earthquake of 1974, and Ana came here from El Salvador. Both of them have lived in the New Orleans metro area for many years now. Before the hurricane they were living modest but happy lives, working and living in small houses with their daughters.

When I met Miguel he had bruises all over his arms, which he said he'd gotten while removing moldy carpet from his home. He was surprisingly cheerful. "It's damage, " he said, "But I fix. I'm alive and my daughter is alive." Over the next few days I got to know Miguel a bit better. He told me stories about attending dances at an American school in Managua so that he could dance with the pretty American girls, and lamented about his job being gone, and his need for new clothes because all of his old ones had been ruined. He was disappointed to hear that the rumor about the Red Cross giving out free t-shirts and socks wasn't true. He really needed them and couldn't afford to buy any. "What I really need is money to pay the bills, though. Work stops, but bills don't." I met his daughter, who was working, but not making enough to support herself and her father. I heard about their unsuccessful attempts to get financial assistance from any of the large organizations, and I said that I would try to help if I could. I told them I couldn't promise anything, and not to get their hopes up, but that I would try.

Ana was friends with Miguel, but I have no idea if they knew each other before the hurricane. She was always bright and cheerful, kept a good face on things, and tried to help out in the volunteer areas when she could. Then the night before I left, Ana came through the dinner line on the verge of tears. She wouldn't speak, only pointed at things she might eat until someone asked what was wrong. At that point she couldn't help but start crying, and when she spoke her English was much poorer than usual. "I see my house today, " she said. "It is... roof inside. Water... in everywhere." After that she couldn't say anything else, so someone took her plate and walked her to a table. As soon as I could get a break, I went over and made sure she had the Red Cross 800 number for financial assistance, and spent my dinner break talking to her and Miguel in broken Spanish. It turned out that Ana was in almost exactly the same situation as Miguel except that her house was utterly destroyed. In a few minutes her daughter came over and by the end of my break I'd promised to try to help them, too.

I've a had a little bit of luck so far raising funds from family members, but I'd like to be able to get them as much as I can. I know that most of you have already donated time or money or both to various relief efforts in the wake of Katrina, and I'm glad that it should be so. If you feel that you can't contribute any more, or that you'd rather it went to a larger effort, I understand. However, if you want to directly improve the lives of 2-4 individuals, this is a chance to do so. I know it won't solve all their problems, and that there are a lot of other deserving people in need out there, but I thought I would try to help a few based on the idea that if we each try to help a few people as we can, then that many more people will have a better chance of getting their normal lives back. I chose these people because of the people I got to know well, they seemed to stand to benefit the most from this sort of help.

Any donations I get will be split fifty-fifty between the two parent/daughter pairs, and I'll send it to them in whichever way they deem best (Western Union seems likely). I'm afraid it won't be tax deductible as I am an individual and no a non-profit group. If you would like to help, send me an email and I'll get you my adress or send paypal donations to mrowsera at hotmail.com. I think I will leave the donation period open for one week. If you feel that you wish to help, but won't be able to until after the time has passed, let me know and we may be able to work something out. No hard feelings if you don't feel you can help, or simply don't wish to contribute to this cause. As I said, I have had a bit of luck so far, and I will send them something no matter what. _
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04:23:03 PM, Tuesday 27 September 2005

Tim asked if I would volunteer with the Red Cross again, and also if I felt that things were organized enough that I could do some good.

I'm not sure whether I will do it again. I'm considering it. I have a meeting this afternoon with my local chapter to go over my experience, turn in my evalutation form, and possibly recover a bit of my expenses. I expect they'll ask me if I am willing to go again, and I'm not sure what I will say.

As for organization, headquarters in Baton Rouge was chaotic, full of people who often didn't know any more than I did, but were somehow placed in positions of bureaucratic authority. How could my chapter have sent me without paperwork, they asked? Well it doesn't matter because even if they had I would still have to fill out these seven forms before anything could be done with me. Please go see the nurse who will look at you confusedly initial a paper for no particular reason and say that you are meant to actually have spoken with us over here first. On the second time around we'll tell you you must go to the nurse and when you explain that you did and those are her initials right there, we'll look at you very suspiciously and stamp the paper and then send you to the nurse a second time... and so on.

Despite all that I really do believe that the majority of the people I encountered really did want to help other people. The Red Cross was getting a lot of flack for not doing enough, but actually I was sent as close to New Orleans as the government would allow, and my unit was feeding several thousand people every day. People were bitter because we could not give them money, and I wished that I could help with that, but up until the day before I left there wasn't any news of how the Red Cross might financially assist people, and when there finally was it was only an 800 number which was always busy.

One important thing to remember is that the Red Cross exists primarily to set up shelters for people who have no place to stay, and distribute food (usually made by the Southern Baptists) to hungry people. I was surprised by this myself, as I had always vaguely understood the Red Cross to provide medical aid, etc. They don't officially. They only do the shelter and food distribution, no search and rescue, no medical aid, no distribution of material goods other than food. Locally the Red Cross has chapter specific disaster action teams who help people whose houses have burnt down, etc. In those cases the families are usually issued a Red Cross debit card for groceries, clothing, toiletries and the like, but this is usually done through individual chapters on a local basis. This is why some hurricane evacuees have had luck getting money in places other than Louisiana.

The problem is that the Red Cross is so big and internationally recognized that people expect them to solve everythig. They market themselves constantly, and I've noticed their ads aren't always completely up front about what they do (though I dodn't think they're intentionally misleading people). "Together we can save a life" is their motto. If by saving a life they mean giving hungry people food and homeless people temporary shelter, then they're correct, but otherwise no. The people who were saving lives were search and rescue workers, police, national guardsmen, firefighters, EMTs and the like. We were just performing a service.

Having said all that, I do think I was able to do some good. In a situation like this people need food, and I was helping them get it. Sometimes it was poor people trying to keep on living in ruined apartments, and sometimes it was rescue workers trying to pull people out of flooded attics, but either way all of those people needed to eat. We worked with members of the community who had established distribution points and gathered supplies locally. They'd get the word out to the people who still lived in the area and we'd show up and hand out food. If we heard there was an apartment complex full of old people, they'd tell us about it and we'd drive to it so that people who couldn't get out could still have dinner. We also gave away a lot of water, and whenever we had baby supplies (which technically we weren't supposed to), we'd give those out too.

The most frustrating thing was when trucks would come back with food leftover because despite their best efforts they couldn't find people who needed it. That was particualrly heartbreaking, because we were there, and we had something to give, and we knew that there were plenty of people who needed what we had, but if you drive around all day, stopping every few minutes and calling out on a loudspeaker only to get a few people to come out, what can you do? We had to be back at six just like everyone else while I was there. That was the curfew and the area was under marshall law.

Anyway, most of the good I did, I did by just being there and talking to locals. I think the best thing I could give most of them was reassurance that the outside world cared at all about what happened to them. I also managed to direct one young couple to my mother's house (she had listed herself on hurricanehousing.org, so I felt perfectly free to do so), and I told two other people (who were getting the run around from FEMA and the Red Cross about money, and who were both in their sixties, widowed, living at the jail because their houses were too damaged to live in, and suddenly in the awkward position of being unemployed and dependent on their daughters who made barely enough to cover their own expenses) that I would do my best to help them if I could. I've had a little bit of success appealing to relatives on that score, but I suppose i ought to open up the request to friends. I'll do that in another entry later today. For now I should go get ready to attend my afternoon meeting. _
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03:12:26 PM, Monday 26 September 2005

Mike asked about the most unexpected thing that I came across while volunteering. It's a hard question to answer because everything was strange and familiar at the same time, but the thing that stands out the most in my memory is the way that being in the middle of wreckage began to feel normal so quickly. After only one day of work, on the bus to the showers, a few of us who had not been out of the disaster zone yet were overcome with a sense of confusion upon exiting the freeway and driving into a town where all the lights worked and there was a dealership full of pristine SUVs. It struck us then both how much we take for granted in our normal lives, and also how quickly the mind adapts to different surroundings. We'd only been out of Baton Rouge for a day but we had already come to expect that most buildings would be damaged and that things would really be dark after sunset.

A week later on returning to Baton Rouge my carload of people stopped at an Applebee's for lunch. The air conditioning and prompt service were bliss, though it all felt very strange. The bartender (we sat at the bar so as to get food more quickly) told us that he was hosting several extended family members who had fled Katrina, which made things seem more normal to me at the time. Everyone I met was trying to get on with life, but normal in that situation almost always involved staying with others, hosting others, and/or trying to assess and repair damages in one's "spare" time. The police officers were all working 12 hour shifts, and would go to their homes on their off days to pull up carpet, shovel sheet-rock out of their living rooms, or dig though rubble and try to save what little was left. Most people, even the ones who had lost everything, and who couldn't find family members seemed extraordinarily optimistic. "I'm alive," they'd say. "At least I'm alive." _
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04:47:35 PM, Saturday 24 September 2005

I'm not in a mood to talk much about my recent trip today, but I will say that it is quite nice to be in Northern California where the weather is cool and not to wet nor too dry. On the last morning I was in Louisiana a group of us went from the shelter we'd spent the previous night at to the headquarters building in an air conditioned rental car. The ride was uneventful, though nice and cool, but I found that on getting out of the car everything seemed to be fading in front of my eyes. Things were blurry and whitish and the phenomenon got worse by the second. After a brief bout of panic ("I'm going blind. Oh no!") I thought that maybe cleaning my glasses would help. When I took them off everything became instantly clearer. In the space of thirty seconds after I stepped from air conditioned car to muggy open air, my glasses had actually fogged up to the point of opaqueness. On a clear and sunny day. That's some impressive humidity. _
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06:56:13 PM, Tuesday 20 September 2005

A bit before 8:30 the next morning I went to the designated meeting spot, which was in between the police kitchen and the Southern Baptist kitchen. Immediately upon my arrival someone asked me and another woman to help carry some Cambros (the large red plastic cubes pictured in the entry I posted while out on the truck -- inside they hold 2-300 servings of food and keep it hot or cold for several hours) from the kitchen to some pallets from whence they would be carried by forklifts over to the trucks. I'm not sure how heavy a cambro is, but it did definitely take two of us to carry a full one. We managed to move about five before they called us over to the group meeting.

The meeting was very similar to our orientation spiel, we were reminded again that we were guests of the police, and that we needed to treat everyone with respect. They also issued a number of safety reminders. Wear a hat while working, apply sunscreen 2-3 times a day, drink copious amounts of Gatorade and water, ask for a break the instant the heat makes you feel dizzy or ill, and so on. A few minutes later they read out the list of people who were going out on the trucks and told everyone else to go off and get to work. My group was puzzled, having not been assigned anywhere, so we asked for direction and got split up between the yard (where they load the trucks) and the police kitchen. I (as you may have heard earlier on this blog) was sent to the police kitchen where I would help clean up, prepare food (though not cook it), serve food, and fetch and carry. The police kitchen was in a garage like area (well, under a roof anyway, it hadn't any walls) with concrete floors. There were four semis parked at the back of it with their trailer doors facing the kitchen. To the left was a deep fryer, rotisserie oven, food prep table and a few grills then, moving right, a line of serving tables, dining tables, ice chests for drinks and finally a sink and two large freezers for ice storage.

Work in the kitchen was hot, especially while serving, due to all the grills and generators behind us and the tables laden with pans of food kept warm by Sterno (two cans under each hot dish). Serving a meal usually lasted between two and three hours (or until the food ran out). In the off time we wiped down tables with disinfectant spray, chopped veggies and fruit, set prepackaged goods (cereal, cookies, crackers) out and later put them away, fetched ingredients from the semis (three of the trailers were refrigerated), tidied the workplace, washed the floors, took out the trash and so on. I spent a lot of time peeling garlic, actually, which hurts the hands something fierce after a while (especially if you manage to get a sliver under a nail and then bathe the raw skin repeatedly in garlic oil), but has the perk of keeping the bugs away. There was pretty much always something to be done, but all of us tried to take breaks to drink and sit fairly often so as to keep up our stamina.

After the first day my days in the kitchen started at six a.m. and ended sometime between 8 and 9 p.m. Sometimes I got a bit of a break between lunch and dinner (2-4 ish), and sometimes I didn't. Only once did I overheat, and it snuck up on me very fast when it happened. Feeling quite well, but a bit thirsty I sat down for a moment and had a bit of water, then when I rose to serve food again I felt a sickening wave of lightheaded nausea of the sort I remember feeling only once or twice before, both at times when I either passed out or came within a hair of it (once after giving blood at St. John's). I kept it together long enough to empty my ladle onto the plate of the person in front of me and then tapped my nearest co-worker and said, "I think I need a break." I must've looked awful because she walked me over to the dining area and got me an ice cold water and some food and said, "Sit, eat, drink, then go upstairs and sleep. Come back for dinner if you are feeling well, but don't come back until tomorrow if you're not." I thanked her and pressed the water bottle to my neck and wrists, ate a very little bit (felt too queasy to do more) and then went to my cell and had a four hour nap. I came back to serve dinner, feeling well enough, but did sleep in until 6:45 the next morning.

After work I usually took the 9 o'clock bus to the shower. It was a half hour ride to a town called La Place where a high school was kind enough to let us use their locker room showers. I never thought that I would be really happy to use a communal shower with uncertain water pressure, broken shower heads and no privacy, but to be honest, that bus ride to the shower, the time I spent getting clean and then riding back in the air conditioned bus was one of my favorite parts of every day. I'd usually get home from my showering adventure by eleven and crash until sometime before five thirty when I would get up and prepare to start a new work day. Getting clean each night almost seemed like a futile endeavor since the humid mid 90s daytime heat only cooled to the low to mid eighties at night, and I'd usually be drenched with sweat before the sun rose, but it was worth it to feel clean and cool even if only for a few minutes.

I'll stop here for now, but coming up next I will tell you about some of the damage I saw, what it was like when I got to go out on the truck, and even a bit about some of the people I met. As I said before, please ask specific questions if you have any and I will do my best to answer them. _
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09:28:44 PM, Monday 19 September 2005

Just spoke with my friend who helps with the community distribution center. He said that my shopping bag full of food and supplies was gone in under ten minutes when he brought it in the other day. He also said that the day after I left it started to get really hard to find a signal on his phone, which is why I hadn't heard from him earlier. I'm off to take a bit of a morning stroll, but I'll come back in a bit and talk about the work I did. _
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11:34:34 AM, Monday 19 September 2005

Before I left they told me I would likely have to sleep outside on the ground, that there would be no electricity, no phone lines, no water, extreme heat, possibility for many diseases, lots of dead bodies floating in contaminated water, a lack of food such that we were advised to bring our own supply, and also to bring enough water for at least two days. They told us to bring large trashbags to spread on the ground if we had to sleep there, or to use as ponchos if we got caught in the rain. They talked a lot about how we would be carrying 50 pounds constantly, possibly through contaminated water and past dead bodies. It was rather frightening to think about, but I kept a stiff upper lip.

Unfortunately I managed to get to the airport 5 minutes late for my flight (after somehow managing to sleep through two hours of alarm and then getting caught in nasty traffic), so I got bumped to the next flight, and then to standby once I got to Dallas. There I met another woman in the same predicament, also a Red Cross volunteer, but from a different chapter. We waited it out until the last flight of the day and then had to find a hotel. The good news was that the airline let us have firm bookings for the next day (mine in the morning, hers in the afternoon), and that we got to share a room, making it cheaper. The bad news was that neither of us had any advance money from the Red Cross (though we were supposed to), and she had no money on hand at all. Theoretically we should be reimbursed for it, though, and I wasn't going to leave her to stay up all night alone, so I paid for the room, and got a receipt. The only hitch is that she put the room in her name. I paid with part of the 200 in cash that I'd brought along. Now I have a receipt in someone else's name, so I have no idea if the Red Cross will agree to reimburse me, but oh well. In the end I suppose all that matters is that we had a place to stay and things turned out all right (at least they did for me. I haven't got any comfirmation that they did for her, but she did have a boarding pass for the next day).

I got to the airport super early and caught my flight out, arriving in Baton Rouge fairly early in the day. At the airport I found a group of volunteers waiting on a shuttle, and went with them over to the headquarters building (they'd set up shop in an abandoned Wal-Mart) where we all went through several hours of entrance paperwork, orientation and so forth. We also got free lunch, which was lukewarm jambalaya. After all the paperwork was done I went to the feeding section to get an assignment and found out that they needed people in Kenner, and that a carload was just getting ready to go. I grabbed my luggage and followed my group to the exit. One of them had been working in the headquarters canteen for a few days, and when he told a coworker on the way out that he was headed to Kenner she stopped us all and said, "Oh no! I just talked to a woman who came from there and she said to expect the worst!" Very reassuring.

Kenner is roughly an hour to an hour and a half from Baton Rouge, but it took us three or four to get there because Baton Rouge traffic is pretty terrible since the post-hurricane population is double the pre-hurricane population. On the way out of the city one of my group's relatives called and said that she'd looked up conditions in Kenner and heard that they were horrible, listed all the expected things, but said that she thought the water had receded at least.

Driving down was interesting. Once we were on the interstate traffic thinned way down and we got to keep up a pretty nice speed. We could tell we were getting closer to the center of the damage because roadside wreckage increased as we went. Torn billboards gave way to bent roadsigns which in turn gave way to forests of trees snapped in half, and tumbled down houses. When we turned off in Kenner the traffic lights and such were all out and it felt like a ghost town. We asked a national guardsman for directions and found our way to the Red Cross shelter, which was for staff only, and was inside the Kenner Police complex (you can see the main building if you scroll down to the bottom of this page). We went in, found our contact person (we'd been given a name at headquarters) and got a quick orientation.

Kenner was as close as the Red Cross could get to New Orleans at the time, it was a part of the New Orleans metro area, and it had flooded, but the water had receded. We'd be sleeping in the jail and working with the Southern Baptists from Arkansas (who were also sleeping in the jail) to distribute food throughout the local community. We wouldn't be cooking, because as it turns out the Red Cross doesn't cook, just distributes. We leave the cooking to the Southern Baptists. We were guests of the police department and should treat all the police personnel with due respect. The compound was running on generators, so there was air conditioning inside and electricity everywhere. No running water except in the portable restroom trailer outside, which had chemically treated water pumped in, but this water was not drinkable. The main attraction of the restroom trailer was that it was well lit and air conditioned. If we wanted to take showers there were buses to a place where we could take them that ran at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. In addition to the Baptist kitchen there was a kitchen run by the police for Police, Military, Baptists and Red Cross. The food there was more fresh and less canned than the food we'd be taking out to the community, and the police were kind enough to share it with everyone working and living in the compound. Some Red Cross people were working in that kitchen, but most of them were working in the yard loading and unloading trucks, or on the trucks distributing food. We were shown to our cells then and told to show up at the daily meeting at 8:30 the next morning to get our assignments.

I think we were all excited to see that we'd have electricity and plenty of food, that we'd sleep indoors and that there weren't dead bodies everywhere we looked. Also all of us had cell phone signals, which was very reassuring. I know my first feeling upon settling in was relief. It was clear that I was in the middle of a disaster zone, but also that I was in a livable space. That's all I'm going to write for today. I'll say more tomorrow about what the work was like and maybe about some of the people I met. I have a lot to tell, but it's going to have to come in pieces I'm afraid. Let me know if you have specific questions, and I'll try to answer them if I can. _
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12:10:31 AM, Monday 19 September 2005

Before I left I scrambled around like mad trying to assemble a list of survival supplies recommended by my chapter. I said I'd post the packing list before I left, but I never had the time. Here it is:

Clothing

2 pairs long khaki pants

1 pair khaki capri pants

1 pair khaki shorts

5 t-shirts of varying degrees of breathability

1 pair breathable work out pants to sleep in

As many socks as possible (ditto underwear)

2 bras (one with underwire, one without)

1 Pair running shoes (after I bought then returned waterproof shoes upon being advised to get some and then not to get any new shoes so as to avoid painful blisters, etc.)

1 pair leather work gloves

1 insect repelling hat with flap to cover ears and neck

Wristwatch with backlight

Toiletries and Safety Items

4 rolls toilet paper

1 first aid kit supplemented with Neosporin, Orajel (a handy local anaesthetic for more than just toothache it turns out), Vick's Vapo Rub, Tylenol, Advil, Immodium AD, Pepcid Complete, and extra bandaids

Jungle Juice insect repellant lotion

Off 98% DEET spray

1 Afterbite roll on stick

SPF 45 sunscreen (I use this all the time for walking anyway)

Gold Bond medicated powder

Wet Ones antibacterial baby wipes

Purell hand sanitizer

Toothpaste and brush

Hairbrush

2 hair ties (in case one should get lost or broken)

Carmex

2 bandanas

1 microfiber super absorbent quick drying towel (Best Thing Ever)

1 bar of soap

Right Guard Extreme antiperspirant (Usually don't do antiperspirant, but I figured I might not be able to bathe for ten days, and that other people would probably be happier if I used as much anti-human-scent stuff as I could)

Tampons

Food and Water

20 Luna bars

6 Power bars

4 Pria Complete Nutrition bars

3 bags Starkist ready to eat tuna

1/2 pound bag almonds

6 24 oz. bottles Dasani water

6 16.9 oz. bottles Arrowhead water

The Rest

12 AAA batteries

1 small LED flashlight

1 miniature fm radio with headphones

Cell phone with leather case, plug-in charger and car lighter charger

1 spiral bound notebook

5 pens

1 small notepad for noting down flight times, contact info, etc.

20 1 gallon size ziploc bags to pack things in so that if one thing leaked the rest would be safe, or if the bags fell into contaminated water the items inside would be clean

1 lanyard to hang ID from

Wallet with driver license, debit card, Red Cross certification cards, immunization card, 200 dollars in cash

1 sheet and pillowcase

3 large black heavy weight trash bags

I carried everything in a backpack, daypack and fanny pack. The big pack has a zip away area to hide the backpack straps when you want to put it away on a plane or whatever. I got it at REI, but I can't find the model I bought on their website. It's quite nice and small, though. I always carried my cell phone, wallet, flashlight, some food, a bandana, Carmex, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, Afterbite, insect repellant, my small notepad and pens in the pack around my waist. These were the indspensible or very valuable items. I never actually used the afterbite on myself, but I let several others use it after mosquitoes or fire ants got them, and I could have needed it at any point.

There were some things I never used. These included the toilet paper, trash bags, Gold Bond powder, work gloves, high tech mosquito repelling hat, and almost all of the food. I used the water, but I didn't need my own supply as there was plenty available. I also didn't use much in my first aid kit (neosporin, a few bandaids, some advil), but if I were going again I would bring everything in it. The wet wipes, towel and ziploc bags were all very useful and efficient, though my bag never got near any contaminated water. The Gold Bond powder seemed leaky, and the Wet wipes would have dried out if they'd been unprotected, also the toothbrush and soap needed individual bags, and having outfits sealed in bags was very efficient as I just grabbed a bag and didn't have to worry about what to wear.

When I left I gave everything consumable to a friend who lived in the area and had started a community distribution point with some of his neighbors. They got 25 nutrition bars, all the tuna and almonds, toilet paper, gold bond powder, tampons, sunscreen, repellant and hand sanitizer. It filled a plastic shopping bag to the point of bulging. So that's what I brought and what I used. Later I'll tell you what conditions were like versus what I was told to expect. Right now I think I need some lunch. _
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04:46:51 PM, Sunday 18 September 2005

I'm really not sure where to begin. _
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11:43:20 AM, Sunday 18 September 2005

I'm back, and very tired. More emotionally than physically; I was wide awake at six a.m. feeling I'd slept in for a ridiculously long time since I was getting up at five thirty all week and six here is eight there. I'm going to need a day or so to decompress, but I'll start talking about things a lot more when I've rested. Just wanted to say hi. I'm alive. I'm well. Don't worry. _
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12:13:42 PM, Saturday 17 September 2005

Kids from the church where I slept last night made thank you bags. Of course I chose this one.

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09:57:41 AM, Friday 16 September 2005

Me in my vest after 8 hours of work. 6 more to go.

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02:49:31 PM, Wednesday 14 September 2005

Should be self explanatory

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08:24:53 PM, Sunday 11 September 2005

Today I'm serving meals out of a truck. We've already exhausted one trip's worth.

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02:00:36 PM, Sunday 11 September 2005

One of many destroyed places on Veterans Blvd. in Metairie.

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01:54:54 PM, Sunday 11 September 2005

Same spot (by the 17th street canal) looking straight down Veterans Blvd.

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03:01:43 PM, Saturday 10 September 2005

Down by the 17th St. canal.

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02:59:13 PM, Saturday 10 September 2005

I talked to Julia earlier this evening. She's been working in the kitchen, mostly serving food to other people working on hurricane relief (Red Cross, National Guard, and police). It sounds like hard work, but not as grueling as we feared it might be--they apparently have more volunteers than they were expecting. I'll post further updates as I get them.
--Moss _
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03:56:47 AM, Saturday 10 September 2005

My bed

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09:38:00 PM, Thursday 8 September 2005

Just talked to Julia. As you may have gleaned from the last entry, she and three others are on their way to Kenner, LA--as close to New Orleans as the Red Cross can go right now--where she'll be working as a kitchen tech.
--Moss _
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06:39:59 PM, Thursday 8 September 2005

I'm going to Kenner right now.

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06:37:39 PM, Thursday 8 September 2005

After a day of flight delays in Dallas, Julia got into Baton Rouge a little before eleven this morning, local time. She didn't yet know what her assignment would be when I talked to her, but she seemed to be doing well. I'll post further news when I hear from her again; although, depending on the phone service down there, that may not be till she's on her way home.
--Moss _
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02:41:23 PM, Thursday 8 September 2005

Looks like my fare has been approved. Waiting on the e-ticket to arrive in my inbox. If it hasn't gotten there by tomorrow morning I am to call the travel agency again. Looks pretty certain, though. Now to get the splinter out of my foot (last thing I needed today, really...), eat lunch, pack and continue looking for a way to get that Hep A vaccination. _
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03:40:25 PM, Tuesday 6 September 2005

Also, I got vaccinated for tetanus and hepatitis B today. I am going to try to get vaccinated for hepatitis A tomorrow. The big news is that I didn't even flinch. That's big if you know my history of fearing needles. Turns out all that time spent donating plasma to get grocery money in college really did help! _
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12:47:42 AM, Tuesday 6 September 2005

Just got off the phone with the Red Cross travel agency. If they can get the fare approved (it's a bit higher than they'd like), I'll be leaving San Francisco on Wednesday morning, arriving in Baton Rouge Wednesday afternoon, and then leaving Baton Rouge the afternoon of Friday the 16th. That's exactly nine days, which is the minimum assignment length. I'll have the option of extending it when I am there, but they advised booking the minimum. I will also have the option of putting myself back on the list to go again after I come home for a while.

I fully expect this to be the hardest thing I have ever done. I do at least feel a bit better having a definite time frame than I did before. I still have to call tomorrow to confirm that this is my real itinerary, but it looks likely.

Since I will be in Louisiana somewhere, it's very likely that I will not have phone access, electricity, etc. I will try to get in touch with Moss if possible, but don't expect to see me online or for me to be able to answer my cell phone. I will try to take a few photos with my cell phone if possible and photoblog them whenever I am in an area that gets reception. No promises, though. I'm told I can expect to work 14 hours or more a day, so there won't exactly be time for lollygagging. So, that's the news. More tomorrow when I find out if I get those flight dates. _
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12:43:34 AM, Tuesday 6 September 2005

The Red Cross just called. I am going in for a briefing and a tetanus shot in an hour. More news as I have it. _
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03:47:55 PM, Monday 5 September 2005

I want to make it clear that I am not accepting money from anyone. The Red Cross will reimburse me for my expenses (so I guess technically I will acept money from someone, just not any of you), so don't worry about it. If you have spare money that you would have given to me, give it to the Red Cross directly. Try to give it through your local chapter if possible, as all local chapters have to put in money individually. If you would prefer not to give money to the Red Cross, but still want to contribute, give it to another reputable organization.

Now I'm off to figure out what exactly I need and then go shopping. I'll post a packing list later. _
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03:00:02 PM, Saturday 3 September 2005

Today I had four hours of disaster services training at my local Red Cross chapter. I am now qualified to go and do mass care, which pretty much means feeding people. They may very well call me out in 2-5 days for a minimum stay of 9 days. If they haven't called by Tuesday, I'm signed up for a shelter care class, and if they haven't called by next weekend, I'm due for a family services class. They've waived first aid and CPR certification, so I don't have those. What I do have is a really intimidating list of supplies to go and buy.

I'm pretty much terrified, but I think I can do it. I've got the spare time, which is what a lot of other healthy people lack, and I've got no medical restrictions, which a lot of other willing people lack. If I were caught in a disaster, if I lost my home and possesssions, and possibly my family, I'd hope that someone else would try to help me if they possibly could.

Knowing that, and knowing that there are plenty of people like Mike who want to help in any way they can, but can't possibly get away from their normal lives to do so (and wouldn't be allowed to go if they could), makes me feel that this is clearly the right thing to do. It doesn't make me less scared, though. I just keep telling myself that nine days is doable, and that other people have to deal with it for much longer periods of time because they have no place to go and no money to help them get there.

I'll keep you updated if I get called. _
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12:16:19 AM, Saturday 3 September 2005

I'm troubled. My local chapter of the Red Cross is holding disaster training classes tomorrow. They're actively recruiting volunteers to get trained for free, and go down to the afflicted areas for a minimum of 9 days. I have free time. I feel like I should do this, but the catches are also numerous. One must be able to lift fifty pounds repeatedly. Can I do that? I don't know. One must be able and willing to put up with a limited food and water supply, no power, etc. I'm torn about whether or not to try this. If I do, will I just be in the way? On top of that, I know Moss would worry, and there's no guarantee I could contact him regularly to let him know how things were going. As I said, torn. Any thoughts? _
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11:18:05 PM, Thursday 1 September 2005

Guess what? I've been published! I have a story in this month's issue of Reflection's Edge (I asked that my payment be sent to the Red Cross for hurricane relief, too, so I can feel all smug and self-righteous). I've also got my writing website up now. I expect eventually there will be some redesigning, and at present the news section is under construction, but everything else works and has content on it. If you want to read the story I wrote for the Commie Pinko 48 Hour Short Story Contest, I've posted it there.

In other news, Happy Birthday, Tori! _
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02:28:07 PM, Thursday 1 September 2005

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site & script courtesy of Moss