The Rollover

We're just about done with our third week with the Red Cross in Baton Rouge. The shelter population is dwindling. Feeding is slowing in Louisiana, though Texas is still going strong. We still have almost 1300 visiting volunteers on the ground here, and several hundred local volunteers who go home every night.

The rollover is my term for the time when most of the volunteers come to the end of their typical 3 week deployment and go home. Even though our needs for staff are falling, we still need to keep certain parts of the operation running at full speed, like our staffing department. So new volunteers are deployed to fill in where others have left. Thus the staff rolls over to some degree.

Part of the function of the group that is working for me is to greet and register arriving staff. The same folks complete the paperwork when staff finishes the job and sends them off to home. These days we have an active mix of both types coming and going throughout the day. A crew of 7 people is working these tasks for me, and since they are people, we have to accommodate days off (about 1 every 8-9 days) and illness, which is probably a little higher than normal life because most of the staff is sleeping in staff shelters and colds can spread more easily.

Since I've been on the job, nearly my entire team has rolled over. I have an excellent supervisor who keeps thing running smoothly, leaving me time to interact with all of the other groups in the operation to chase down corrections in their rosters, and to find answers to the exceptional questions that keep life interesting in headquarters.

Since the Red Cross has been up and running for over 100 years, you might think that we have found the best way to do just about everything that we do. But every disaster operation brings new wrinkles, and this one is no exception. For example, because volunteers that flew into Louisiana arrived and deployed throughout the state before Gustav arrived, we have airline tickets in place in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Alexandria, and Monroe. We also have a significant number that transferred her from along the Gulf Coast. As the operation progressed, the need for staff shifted from eastern part of LA, up to Shreveport in the NW, to the southwestern parts of LA affected by Ike. So we have a lot of folks in the south with tickets to fly home from Shreveport.

To handle this as smoothly as possible, we have a guideline which is based on the cost of changing a ticket with the airline. If the cost exceeds a set amount, then the volunteer will have to return to the ticketed city to depart. Otherwise they can change their ticket and fly home from the nearest airport. It's a blend of using the dollar wisely and using the volunteer wisely.

Rental cars fit into this guideline as well. I've been told that Avis, our primary partner for rental cars, has agreed to waive the drop off fee if we need to leave a car at a different location than it was picked up from. Before they agreed to do that, I know of at least one volunteer that needed to drive from Baton Rouge back to Dallas to drop his car and catch his flight.

Other exceptions don't fit the guideline so easily. Today, we handled a worker who ended up in Lafayette without a rental car, and had to fly out from Baton Rouge. Since part of our job in staffing is to take care of the volunteer, we get involved in such problems. The solution here was easy, since we have couriers moving documents and small amounts of urgently needed supplies within the operation. The volunteer in Lafayette will simple catch a ride with the courier on the day he needs to be here.

The more difficult problems usually include money, things like reimbursing a volunteer for ordinary expenses when the power was out and credit cards don't work and receipts don't get printed. Or a volunteer gets well intended but incorrect advice from a supervisor or their chapter on what expenses are allowed. In such cases, staffing talks with Red Cross headquarters to permit the exception.

The largest on I heard of on this job is that of an ERV driver. ERVs are those red and white trucks that often serve as billboards for the Red Cross in photos of us in the field. They pick up food in Cambro containers at a kitchen and deliver it to people where they live.

This particular driver was deployed from California to be prepared for Gustav in Texas. Since Gustav didn't trouble Texas too much, he was sent to Florida in preparation for Ike. That didn't happen there, either. So they turned him around, back to Texas for Ike. Along the way, the ERV broke down, and the driver got it fixed, which took a few days.

Meanwhile, the ERV driver did not have a PHH gas card which most ERVs carry to pay for fuel. And he had to stay in motel rooms and pay for meals and incidentals along the way. To cover these costs, he needed to use his own credit card with his personal money.

As he finished his 3 week tour, he was about $2000 into his own money. This far exceeds any guidelines we have, and is so unusual, it took a while for us to convince National staff that he was telling the truth. All perfectly reasonable, but highly exceptional.

Perhaps the larger issue for the volunteer was that he took 3 weeks out of his life and never got to do what he came here for, to feed hungry people from his ERV.

We have decided to extend our deployment with the Red Cross. Consuelo will stay one more week in a new job, working with the In Kind Department, which arranges for donations of goods and services to the Operation. I will stay longer, until my department is ready to close, maybe for another 2 weeks. We will get another day off on Sunday.