Flying Home

ERVs ready to go home

By the end of September, things are winding down on DR159 in Baton Rouge. Only a handful of ERVs are still binging food to the damaged neighborhoods, so the rest are gathered at headquarters in Baton Rouge and washed, repaired, checked, and replenished with supplies. Many of the original crew members have already returned home, so new drivers are found, and in some cases flown in to return them to their custodial chapters throughout the USA.

I took an opportunity to speak with the Public Affairs group, to see if my skills and intuition were suitable to work as a volunteer taking photographs and writing stories on an operation such as this. Sharing the work we are doing is important to reveal our contributions to the general public, and to our donors as well. I gave them a link to this blog as a reference, and they said I would be welcome to come work for them, after I had taken the appropriate training. So I may do that in the future.

The triplets

Working at headquarters is not without a little fun and an occasional hi-jinx to lighten the mood. Early in the operation, the job director brought in a Bayou Bengal, a stuffed tiger named after the LSU mascot. The tiger would be handed off every day as an acknowledgement of a job well done by a group or department. At first, it was simply handed off, but when it was my turn to give it away, I made up a story about how the tiger was actually a Red Cross volunteer, that it was assigned to do mental health, and I had filled out an official transfer form to give it away to the next department. Over the next few days, the tiger story grew and grew, one day having had triplets who were abandoned in a staff shelter and fleeing to Texas under the "safe haven law". The triplets got name tags, Faye, Gustav and Ike, after the 3 hurricanes that had ravaged Louisiana this year. The mother returned, blamed Tony the Tiger as the father, and was put up in a hotel. And on, and on.and on.

On September 29th, Consuelo departed Baton Rouge and flew back to Maine. She had spent 4 weeks on the job with Red Cross, working 3 weeks in staffing and the last week in In-Kind donations. In-Kind is part of the Material Supply System that organized donations made to the Red Cross. These could be corporate donations such as pallets of canned water from Anheuser-Busch to a 10 minute a capella concert by the Phi Mu Alpha Symphtones, which we had in headquarters one day. Working in In-Kind gave her a different view of the operation, but I think she still likes working with people more than stuff.

On Tuesday, October 7th, I flew home from Baton Rouge, having spent 5 weeks on the job, with 2 days off. I felt a sens of accomplishment for the job I did, and my performance evaluation reflected that.

By noon on Monday, I began finishing up the tasks I had left on my desk, made a few final changes to the personnel database, and turned in my cell phone. I checked out my rental car, which would be returned to the airport on the next day. I showed Martha Fortenberry how to generate the data for the daily report using a spreadsheet I designed, that reduced a 2 hour job to about 10 minutes. It was faster and easier, but a little tricky, and non-programmers might easily make stumbles along the way.

Decorations at Boutin's

On Monday night, 8 of the remaining staff got together at Boutin's, an authentic bayou restaurant that served alligator and frogs legs, mudbugs, and catfish. It was a goodbye dinner for all, since the numbers in headquarters had dwindled significantly, with under 200 visiting volunteers like us on the job in Louisiana.

After dinner, I went to the hotel, packed my bag, and requested a 5:00 AM wake up call. I got to the airport OK, but initially parked my Hertz rental car in the Avis return spot. This because when we arrived, we got a car from Avis. But I quickly realized my mistake, and move on to the Hertz spots.

Air travel into Atlanta was predictably delayed, and I was about 10 minutes late making my connection for a flight at 10:50 to Boston. Fortunately there was another 12:05 flight to Boston, and it had room for me. And as I write this, I gliding over Long Island Sound as the plane begins its descent.

I'm tired. It has been a long 5 weeks, coming out of retirement to work 10-11 hour days, witnessing 2 hurricanes, and out of touch with my normal routines of life. The food has been OK, but difficult to manage in a healthy way, and I expect I have gained another 6-7 pounds, as I did in Indiana and had not worked off. I miss cooking, I miss my puppy, and for the last week, I ,missed Consuelo.

But the work is rewarding. I was literally moved to tears several times by the commitment of all the volunteers that showed up, taking chunks of time out of their lives, many far more precious than mine, to help other out in times of disaster. It is heartwarming to be part of a group whose principles include minimizing human suffering, and whose mission is to bridge the gap between the initial response and the long term recovery. As my health and finances permit, I will continue to offer my services in this cause.