After a pleasant two-day trip to Baton Rouge (for the purpose of what must have been sightseeing, for nothing relevant actually got accomplished), we have been assigned...right back where we were previously, in Lake Charles. This time, our team has been given the task of keeping the Volunteer Housing Center clean.
Yes, you read that correctly. Now, bear with me. We have endured a month of training (much of which revolved around disaster operations with the Red Cross) in Denver, two construction projects, during which we got a firsthand look at the devastation in the Gulf Coast from Katrina and Rita, three weeks of a disaster call-up in Franklin, IN during the Midwest flooding, and three and a half weeks of staffing and managing various Red Cross evacuee shelters. IS IT ME OR ARE WE A BIT FUCKING OVERQUALIFIED TO BE FUCKING JANITORS?!
Ahem. The reason why we are unable to do anything relevant is that the headquarters in Baton Rouge refuses to release us from their authority, which would allow us to head down to Dallas/Fort Worth and begin relief efforts in Texas. I guess they feel they still need us...which is clearly not the case. Therefore, when my team leader asked for one volunteer to work with Bulk Distribution (loading, inventorying, unloading, and driving box trucks around to drop off supplies), my hand immediately shot up. It's not bad work; we're able to take truckloads into some of the hardest-hit areas in Southwest Louisiana, and deliver them directly to local distribution centers. Beats cleaning toilets any day...
On a different subject: Alright, I know my weaknesses. I know that in the past, I was the nice guy that kinda allowed people to walk all over me in an attempt to get their approval. I recognized it even as I did it, but hoped that they would see me in a better light because of it. Over the last couple years I've been doing my best to break out of that pattern, but I know some vestiges of it remain. However, it's massively insulting when somebody just out and out expects me to roll over for them. For example: you tell me that you're interested in me, you tell me that you want to try a relationship with me...but you also tell me that you have no intention of breaking up with your boyfriend (who, I might add, is a cheating scumbag). I know that you don't see anything wrong with that, but I don't think I've ever been so insulted. What do you expect me to do: wait eagerly by the phone like a puppy dog for months until you realize that you're dating an asshole and finally deign to grace me with your presence? Fuck that.
End of rant.
27 September 2008
20 September 2008
Nocturne
Southwest Louisiana Volunteer Housing
Lake Charles, LA
The arrival of Hurricane Ike at our former housing in Baton Rouge was anti-climactic; it was windy and it rained a bit, but the conditions never worsened beyond those of a thunderstorm. In other parts of the Gulf, however, the damage was incredible. Galveston is most likely going to be uninhabitable for more than a year, Beaumont has suffered a lot of damage, and Houston has a long way to go before it recovers.
Our team is currently running a shelter out of the First Baptist Church in Westlake, LA. The church is the third incarnation of the shelter; it began in a small elementary school cafeteria, then moved to the Martin Luther King Community Center before being transferred to the church. For the first time since we arrived, things have begun to calm down. There are about 170 clients living in our shelter, and the local headquarters has done a decent job of supplying us with things that we need. I have been assigned as the night shift shelter supervisor, which means I'm responsible for the overall operation of the shelter between 8 PM and 8 AM. I work with three other people from my team, as well as two Red Cross staff nurses and several National Guardsmen from the local armory for security. Thus, I am essentially nocturnal now; once I get off shift at 8 in the morning, I tend to take a shower and fall into bed...only to get up around 7 PM and prepare to do it all again. In general, it has gone well...however, like any undertaking of this magnitude, there have been some problems. So, without further ado...
It began with the takeover of the delivery women. After our move to the MLK center, it was determined that the overall shelter manager would be my team leader, who both myself and the day supervisor would report to. Several hours into the first day shift, two women from headquarters arrived at the shelter, ostensibly to drop off paperwork and supplies. By the time I came in for the night shift, they had taken over...led by what I can only describe as an extremely masculine and pushy woman bedecked in Harley-Davidson apparel. She proclaimed herself to be the shelter manager, and appointed her "co-worker" as the second in command. This in itself did not irk me as much as did the immediate realization that neither of these bitches had the slightest idea what they were doing. Needless to say, within a day the Harley woman had been kicked out...but not without leaving quite a mess for us to clean up.
Some of the other interesting events thus far: the arrival of a bus with 50 people seeking shelter at 1 AM, when everyone else was sleeping...our constant dealings with a larcenous old man who stole a coffee pot, a pocketknife, and Christ knows what else...the drama between a drug-addicted mother, the abusive and mentally challenged grandmother, and the two little kids that ended up with Child Protective Services coming out...the revelation that we had a woman with a warrant out for her arrest and her child-molester husband in the shelter...and that was in the span of about four days. Wonder what will happen tonight...
Lake Charles, LA
The arrival of Hurricane Ike at our former housing in Baton Rouge was anti-climactic; it was windy and it rained a bit, but the conditions never worsened beyond those of a thunderstorm. In other parts of the Gulf, however, the damage was incredible. Galveston is most likely going to be uninhabitable for more than a year, Beaumont has suffered a lot of damage, and Houston has a long way to go before it recovers.
Our team is currently running a shelter out of the First Baptist Church in Westlake, LA. The church is the third incarnation of the shelter; it began in a small elementary school cafeteria, then moved to the Martin Luther King Community Center before being transferred to the church. For the first time since we arrived, things have begun to calm down. There are about 170 clients living in our shelter, and the local headquarters has done a decent job of supplying us with things that we need. I have been assigned as the night shift shelter supervisor, which means I'm responsible for the overall operation of the shelter between 8 PM and 8 AM. I work with three other people from my team, as well as two Red Cross staff nurses and several National Guardsmen from the local armory for security. Thus, I am essentially nocturnal now; once I get off shift at 8 in the morning, I tend to take a shower and fall into bed...only to get up around 7 PM and prepare to do it all again. In general, it has gone well...however, like any undertaking of this magnitude, there have been some problems. So, without further ado...
It began with the takeover of the delivery women. After our move to the MLK center, it was determined that the overall shelter manager would be my team leader, who both myself and the day supervisor would report to. Several hours into the first day shift, two women from headquarters arrived at the shelter, ostensibly to drop off paperwork and supplies. By the time I came in for the night shift, they had taken over...led by what I can only describe as an extremely masculine and pushy woman bedecked in Harley-Davidson apparel. She proclaimed herself to be the shelter manager, and appointed her "co-worker" as the second in command. This in itself did not irk me as much as did the immediate realization that neither of these bitches had the slightest idea what they were doing. Needless to say, within a day the Harley woman had been kicked out...but not without leaving quite a mess for us to clean up.
Some of the other interesting events thus far: the arrival of a bus with 50 people seeking shelter at 1 AM, when everyone else was sleeping...our constant dealings with a larcenous old man who stole a coffee pot, a pocketknife, and Christ knows what else...the drama between a drug-addicted mother, the abusive and mentally challenged grandmother, and the two little kids that ended up with Child Protective Services coming out...the revelation that we had a woman with a warrant out for her arrest and her child-molester husband in the shelter...and that was in the span of about four days. Wonder what will happen tonight...
12 September 2008
Final Approach
At this point, I'm not even surprised. After packing up all my gear this morning, we were told that our trip to Alexandria would be delayed, and possibly canceled. I'm not positive about the precise bit of Americorps policy that spurred this decision, but I can imagine it has something to do with the directors not wanting us to drive through the leading edge of a Category 3 hurricane. (Wimps.) Thus, we will be here at the Summa Staff Shelter in Baton Rouge, riding out Ike as he makes landfall in about two hours. This storm, at 600 miles wide, is fucking massive. As of the last time I checked the Weather Channel website (weather.com - one of my new favorite sites), Ike is supposed to make landfall aimed directly at Houston, with its miles and miles of canals, refineries, shipping ports, and waterfront businesses. This does not bode well for all of the aforementioned. A wall of water will be pushed down those canals, destroying everything in their path. Galveston has been getting the crap beat out of it since this afternoon, and the storm has yet to officially arrive yet. The National Weather Service sent out a press release utilizing unprecedented language: those who do not evacuate in areas of coastal Texas will face "certain death" from the storm surge. They are not fucking around about this storm.
While we're on the topic of storm surges, I'd like to refer you to several posts I wrote around May and June, when I was working for Habitat for Humanity in Beaumont, Texas. The house my team was working on at the time was in the little town of Sabine Pass, located deep in the marshes of the Texas/Louisiana border. The area contains miles and miles of oil refineries and a massive Liquid Natural Gas terminal. It is also, as of this afternoon, expecting a 25-foot (!!!) storm surge to sweep in from Hurricane Ike. As much as I disliked Beaumont, my thoughts go out to the people of that tiny little marsh-front town. With any luck, the house that we helped to construct (which was build up on 10-foot pilings) will weather the crush of water and wind. Good luck, Sabine.
As of now...the lights are on, the phones still work, the internet still works. The wind has been steadily picking up since this afternoon, and we've had the occasional rain squall, but the outer bands of the storm have yet to really come down on us. There are crude signs posted on the wall of our shelter that read TORNADO SHELTER, which I feel is an extreme exaggeration. Short of that, though, I am prepared: I have a Mini-MagLite, my video camera, bags of pretzels and jalapeno chips, and a book or two. So we'll wait through the minor bits of the story that spin off and hit us, then hopefully get sent somewhere relevant to go do something important. For once.
Here we go...
While we're on the topic of storm surges, I'd like to refer you to several posts I wrote around May and June, when I was working for Habitat for Humanity in Beaumont, Texas. The house my team was working on at the time was in the little town of Sabine Pass, located deep in the marshes of the Texas/Louisiana border. The area contains miles and miles of oil refineries and a massive Liquid Natural Gas terminal. It is also, as of this afternoon, expecting a 25-foot (!!!) storm surge to sweep in from Hurricane Ike. As much as I disliked Beaumont, my thoughts go out to the people of that tiny little marsh-front town. With any luck, the house that we helped to construct (which was build up on 10-foot pilings) will weather the crush of water and wind. Good luck, Sabine.
As of now...the lights are on, the phones still work, the internet still works. The wind has been steadily picking up since this afternoon, and we've had the occasional rain squall, but the outer bands of the storm have yet to really come down on us. There are crude signs posted on the wall of our shelter that read TORNADO SHELTER, which I feel is an extreme exaggeration. Short of that, though, I am prepared: I have a Mini-MagLite, my video camera, bags of pretzels and jalapeno chips, and a book or two. So we'll wait through the minor bits of the story that spin off and hit us, then hopefully get sent somewhere relevant to go do something important. For once.
Here we go...
Wrath (Natural and Otherwise)
I suppose I thought I was joking yesterday when I mentioned that perhaps we would stay somewhere two days in a row, but clearly I was wrong. Sure enough, we got orders this afternoon to drive back to Alexandria, where we will be opening another shelter in the Coliseum. It remains to be seen if people actually take refuge there, but here's hoping. This could be my last post for a couple days; it's likely we will take a significant hit from Hurricane Ike, and there's no telling whether power, internet or phone service will be available. Never thought I'd be riding out a Category 3 hurricane as part of my Americorps term of service, but it's one more thing to cross off my Bucket List and will make a pretty cool story if it heads for us.
Anyway. The Red Cross seems to be slowly usurping FEMA's long-held position of the most disorganized agency in a given disaster area. In the week since we flew down to Baton Rouge, we've had four different housing locations and, with the exception of one shift at the Alexandria mega shelter, have accomplished little in the way of meaningful work. Say what you will about every job being important, but there's no reason why a team of relatively well-trained Americorps workers should spend their time on a disaster deployment sweeping the floors in a staff shelter or restocking the bathrooms with toilet paper. Every once in a while we'll unload a truck full of supplies, but half the time we find out that the truck went to the wrong place, or the supplies aren't needed anymore...the list goes on and on. It really is amazingly frustrating, not being able to do anything relevant due to the Red Cross' inability to figure out what the fuck they need done and where the fuck they need it. To hearken back to my post from Denver International Airport, this is NOT why I joined Americorps.
From the path (kinda) of the storm...
Anyway. The Red Cross seems to be slowly usurping FEMA's long-held position of the most disorganized agency in a given disaster area. In the week since we flew down to Baton Rouge, we've had four different housing locations and, with the exception of one shift at the Alexandria mega shelter, have accomplished little in the way of meaningful work. Say what you will about every job being important, but there's no reason why a team of relatively well-trained Americorps workers should spend their time on a disaster deployment sweeping the floors in a staff shelter or restocking the bathrooms with toilet paper. Every once in a while we'll unload a truck full of supplies, but half the time we find out that the truck went to the wrong place, or the supplies aren't needed anymore...the list goes on and on. It really is amazingly frustrating, not being able to do anything relevant due to the Red Cross' inability to figure out what the fuck they need done and where the fuck they need it. To hearken back to my post from Denver International Airport, this is NOT why I joined Americorps.
From the path (kinda) of the storm...
11 September 2008
Perpetual Motion
Staff Shelter
Baton Rouge, LA
Once again, we've been transferred. The word was passed down from on high: since Hurricane Ike was taking aim at Southern Texas and looked to be leaving Louisiana alone (alliteration, anyone), the LSU Megashelter would not be open for clients. Anybody who still wanted to evacuate would be given a place to stay at smaller shelters nearby, but the facility would be closed and the majority of the staff would either cycle back home at the end of their deployment or travel to Houston, Corpus Christi or Galveston to help with last-minute preparations for Ike. Our team was told at 11 AM that we would be returning to Baton Rouge. We hurried up and packed accordingly...only to sit around for five hours before actually being given the information as to our destination. This in no way surprised me.
So here we are, at a staff shelter in Baton Rouge that was opened at around 8 PM this evening. It has been set up in that kind of professional building that houses various and sundry clinics and doctors' offices. The accommodations here are actually pretty nice; three or four to a room, internet and power, access to a shower trailer. Supposedly our team and the other Denver campus team that we're working with will be running the staff shelter for the duration (which, if you've been reading any of my previous works, could be anywhere from like six hours to next hurricane season, really). Our responsibilities haven't really been outlined (again, not a real big shock) but there's a staff meeting tomorrow morning at nine, so we'll see.
In other news. Due to my assignment on the graveyard shift at the Megashelter (and my subsequent 8 AM - 4 PM sleep cycle) I completely missed the majority of the NFL's Opening Weekend. This pained me greatly. However, I was VERY gratified to see that my Steelers had handled their business against the Houston Texans. Ben Roethlisberger was flawless, Willie Parker scored more touchdowns than he had the entire 2007 season, and the defense stepped up in grand fashion. Brilliant. Well played, boys. Yet another bright spot of the weekend (for me, anyway...my friends from the Boston area were undoubtedly somewhat less thrilled) was seeing Tom Brady go down with a season-ending knee injury eight minutes into the first quarter. Don't get me wrong: I don't like seeing anybody injured. Really though, it couldn't have happened to a nicer team. Say what you will about Randy Moss, Lawrence Maroney and the defense: the Patriots are not going to make the playoffs with Matt Cassel under center. The balance of power in the AFC East has shifted (for this year anyway)...and the beneficiary might very well be the previously-hapless Buffalo Bills (who, as you recall, I had predicted would make the playoffs well before Brady's injury. Mark it well, folks).
Quick thoughts on Opening Weekend
-Kurt Warner is going to be the next Vinny Testaverde, but much better.
-Different jersey, same Favre.
-Michael Turner wasted four years behind L.T.
-God, the Rams are awful.
-If the Bills could stick to special teams all game, they would win it all.
-Tavaris Jackson? Is that REALLY the best the Vikings can do?
-How did the Bengals let Joe Flacco take it 38 yards to the house by himself?
-Peyton, that had better have been a fluke.
So for now I return to the night shift, trying to stay awake and find things to do, and hoping we stay in one place for more than three days this time.
Baton Rouge, LA
Once again, we've been transferred. The word was passed down from on high: since Hurricane Ike was taking aim at Southern Texas and looked to be leaving Louisiana alone (alliteration, anyone), the LSU Megashelter would not be open for clients. Anybody who still wanted to evacuate would be given a place to stay at smaller shelters nearby, but the facility would be closed and the majority of the staff would either cycle back home at the end of their deployment or travel to Houston, Corpus Christi or Galveston to help with last-minute preparations for Ike. Our team was told at 11 AM that we would be returning to Baton Rouge. We hurried up and packed accordingly...only to sit around for five hours before actually being given the information as to our destination. This in no way surprised me.
So here we are, at a staff shelter in Baton Rouge that was opened at around 8 PM this evening. It has been set up in that kind of professional building that houses various and sundry clinics and doctors' offices. The accommodations here are actually pretty nice; three or four to a room, internet and power, access to a shower trailer. Supposedly our team and the other Denver campus team that we're working with will be running the staff shelter for the duration (which, if you've been reading any of my previous works, could be anywhere from like six hours to next hurricane season, really). Our responsibilities haven't really been outlined (again, not a real big shock) but there's a staff meeting tomorrow morning at nine, so we'll see.
In other news. Due to my assignment on the graveyard shift at the Megashelter (and my subsequent 8 AM - 4 PM sleep cycle) I completely missed the majority of the NFL's Opening Weekend. This pained me greatly. However, I was VERY gratified to see that my Steelers had handled their business against the Houston Texans. Ben Roethlisberger was flawless, Willie Parker scored more touchdowns than he had the entire 2007 season, and the defense stepped up in grand fashion. Brilliant. Well played, boys. Yet another bright spot of the weekend (for me, anyway...my friends from the Boston area were undoubtedly somewhat less thrilled) was seeing Tom Brady go down with a season-ending knee injury eight minutes into the first quarter. Don't get me wrong: I don't like seeing anybody injured. Really though, it couldn't have happened to a nicer team. Say what you will about Randy Moss, Lawrence Maroney and the defense: the Patriots are not going to make the playoffs with Matt Cassel under center. The balance of power in the AFC East has shifted (for this year anyway)...and the beneficiary might very well be the previously-hapless Buffalo Bills (who, as you recall, I had predicted would make the playoffs well before Brady's injury. Mark it well, folks).
Quick thoughts on Opening Weekend
-Kurt Warner is going to be the next Vinny Testaverde, but much better.
-Different jersey, same Favre.
-Michael Turner wasted four years behind L.T.
-God, the Rams are awful.
-If the Bills could stick to special teams all game, they would win it all.
-Tavaris Jackson? Is that REALLY the best the Vikings can do?
-How did the Bengals let Joe Flacco take it 38 yards to the house by himself?
-Peyton, that had better have been a fluke.
So for now I return to the night shift, trying to stay awake and find things to do, and hoping we stay in one place for more than three days this time.
09 September 2008
Lull
LSU-A Megashelter
Alexandria, LA
It seems like weeks since we landed in Baton Rouge to start work for the Red Cross. It has been only five days, however, and they have been eventful. Our first night was spent in a church hall without power (thus no A/C or hot water). The humidity and heat inside the tightly packed hall was bad enough that I set my cot up on the patio under the night sky. Thanks to the power outage, I was treated to one of the most spectacular displays of stars I have ever seen. The next morning, we made the 5-mile trip to the Red Cross headquarters on Airline Highway (which, thanks to the lack of working traffic lights, took about an hour) and was sucked into the disaster-standard procedure of 'hurry up and wait'. Between our arrival at 9 AM and around 2 that afternoon, we underwent a brief (and pointless) training session and sat there waiting for something to do.
A few of us were given the task of driving 'communications equipment' (which consisted of: a single laptop, a phone and a charger) up to Alexandria, about two hours north of Baton Rouge. Upon arrival we found what might be one of the coolest facilities I've ever seen. Known as the Megashelter, it is a massive building with roughly the same floor space as the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. Completed earlier this year, it is the first purpose-built hurricane shelter of its size in the country (Author's Note: hurricane shelters are almost always set up in gymnasiums, churches, schools, etc...structures with lots of floor space, but otherwise poorly suited to accommodate hundreds of displaced people). This megashelter is specifically built as a hurricane shelter. It can withstand a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane,
and house over 5000 clients (the Red Cross' preferred term for storm victims)
with enough bathrooms and showers (always a major problem for shelters) for both them and the staff. They have a dedicated medical wing staffed by officers of the US Public Health Service, separate living space for Red Cross, EMT and other staffers, a large cafeteria, and the loading docks and storage spaces to deal with the massive amount of supplies that so many people need to operate.
At the moment my team and the 50-odd Red Cross staffers are sitting tight. We finished cleaning up after the Gustav evacuees a day or so ago, and are now just manning the shelter and preparing for the potential clients that will be coming our way to avoid Hurricane Ike. It's quite uneventful for now. The calm before the storm, so to speak.
Alexandria, LA
It seems like weeks since we landed in Baton Rouge to start work for the Red Cross. It has been only five days, however, and they have been eventful. Our first night was spent in a church hall without power (thus no A/C or hot water). The humidity and heat inside the tightly packed hall was bad enough that I set my cot up on the patio under the night sky. Thanks to the power outage, I was treated to one of the most spectacular displays of stars I have ever seen. The next morning, we made the 5-mile trip to the Red Cross headquarters on Airline Highway (which, thanks to the lack of working traffic lights, took about an hour) and was sucked into the disaster-standard procedure of 'hurry up and wait'. Between our arrival at 9 AM and around 2 that afternoon, we underwent a brief (and pointless) training session and sat there waiting for something to do.
A few of us were given the task of driving 'communications equipment' (which consisted of: a single laptop, a phone and a charger) up to Alexandria, about two hours north of Baton Rouge. Upon arrival we found what might be one of the coolest facilities I've ever seen. Known as the Megashelter, it is a massive building with roughly the same floor space as the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. Completed earlier this year, it is the first purpose-built hurricane shelter of its size in the country (Author's Note: hurricane shelters are almost always set up in gymnasiums, churches, schools, etc...structures with lots of floor space, but otherwise poorly suited to accommodate hundreds of displaced people). This megashelter is specifically built as a hurricane shelter. It can withstand a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane,
and house over 5000 clients (the Red Cross' preferred term for storm victims)
with enough bathrooms and showers (always a major problem for shelters) for both them and the staff. They have a dedicated medical wing staffed by officers of the US Public Health Service, separate living space for Red Cross, EMT and other staffers, a large cafeteria, and the loading docks and storage spaces to deal with the massive amount of supplies that so many people need to operate.
At the moment my team and the 50-odd Red Cross staffers are sitting tight. We finished cleaning up after the Gustav evacuees a day or so ago, and are now just manning the shelter and preparing for the potential clients that will be coming our way to avoid Hurricane Ike. It's quite uneventful for now. The calm before the storm, so to speak.
04 September 2008
Update The Second
Gate A45
Denver International Airport
So we have a little bit more information as to what we will be doing upon arrival in Baton Rouge. There are 49 emergency shelters in the city, and we are slated to be running at least one, possibly more of them. The condition of Baton Rouge itself is not good; there is no power, and it is unlikely that it will be restored within two or three weeks. Wait times for basic services such as food and water are up to three hours. There is no hot water, so showers and laundry are unlikely. We will be working 7 days a week, likely 17 to 18 hour days. We will be sharing a staff shelter with dozens of other volunteers, and will be asked to work longer than our slated 21-day deployment.
It will make our first disaster callup, in Indiana, seem like a vacation by comparison. Hell, this is why I joined Americorps.
Here we go.
Denver International Airport
So we have a little bit more information as to what we will be doing upon arrival in Baton Rouge. There are 49 emergency shelters in the city, and we are slated to be running at least one, possibly more of them. The condition of Baton Rouge itself is not good; there is no power, and it is unlikely that it will be restored within two or three weeks. Wait times for basic services such as food and water are up to three hours. There is no hot water, so showers and laundry are unlikely. We will be working 7 days a week, likely 17 to 18 hour days. We will be sharing a staff shelter with dozens of other volunteers, and will be asked to work longer than our slated 21-day deployment.
It will make our first disaster callup, in Indiana, seem like a vacation by comparison. Hell, this is why I joined Americorps.
Here we go.
03 September 2008
Update
As I had suspected, we have been pulled from our Habitat project in Biloxi, largely due to the fact that the trailers that would serve as our housing have been flooded. We have been reassigned to the Red Cross disaster relief effort in Louisiana. Come tomorrow morning, we will fly down to Baton Rouge (which, if my rudimentary French serves me correctly, translates to Red Stick) and take over the operation of a Red Cross emergency shelter. Our team will be responsible for the general management of the shelter, including the care and feeding of the temporary residents. The problem is that we don't know exactly where will be sent to. Our shelter might in Baton Rouge, or possibly as far south as Lafayette. We won't know until we land tomorrow, which seems to strike me as a fairly good representation of how disorganized Americorps can be at times. I shall spend the rest of the night packing and attempting to determine how I will cram my backpack (currently stuffed to the gills with clothing, books, this laptop, and Christ knows what else) into the overhead compartment on a 737. Brilliant.
02 September 2008
A Sigh Of Relief
Denver, CO
Relatively good news yesterday: Hurricane Gustav dealt New Orleans only a glancing blow, with minimal flooding reported in the Ninth Ward, Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes. It is yet another setback to a city that recently marked the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, but the general consensus seems to be that it could have been much worse. Over 2 million people evacuated coastal Louisiana in the hurricane's path, proving that despite a number of problems that remain with the levees, many of the issues of Katrina have been rectified. Meanwhile, out in the Atlantic, Hurricane Hanna and Tropical Storm Ike are beginning to intensify. It appears that Hanna will travel up the Eastern Seaboard, striking somewhere between Florida and South Carolina sometime this week. As Jimmy Buffett sang, "Tryin' to reason with hurricane season..."
The question now for me is where my team will be deployed. I was supposed to head down to Biloxi, MS on Wednesday, but there were reports of flooding in that area so at the moment, it's unclear where we will be. It is possible that we will be sent to the New Orleans area again, or possibly Baton Rouge or Lafayette, both of which took the brunt of Gustav's wind and rain. Meetings and conference calls are taking place as I speak, as the Denver campus tries to figure out what it will do with the 17 teams slated for Gulf Projects. So at the moment I sit here, unsure of our destination or job assignment. That's the nature of the job, I suppose.
Relatively good news yesterday: Hurricane Gustav dealt New Orleans only a glancing blow, with minimal flooding reported in the Ninth Ward, Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes. It is yet another setback to a city that recently marked the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, but the general consensus seems to be that it could have been much worse. Over 2 million people evacuated coastal Louisiana in the hurricane's path, proving that despite a number of problems that remain with the levees, many of the issues of Katrina have been rectified. Meanwhile, out in the Atlantic, Hurricane Hanna and Tropical Storm Ike are beginning to intensify. It appears that Hanna will travel up the Eastern Seaboard, striking somewhere between Florida and South Carolina sometime this week. As Jimmy Buffett sang, "Tryin' to reason with hurricane season..."
The question now for me is where my team will be deployed. I was supposed to head down to Biloxi, MS on Wednesday, but there were reports of flooding in that area so at the moment, it's unclear where we will be. It is possible that we will be sent to the New Orleans area again, or possibly Baton Rouge or Lafayette, both of which took the brunt of Gustav's wind and rain. Meetings and conference calls are taking place as I speak, as the Denver campus tries to figure out what it will do with the 17 teams slated for Gulf Projects. So at the moment I sit here, unsure of our destination or job assignment. That's the nature of the job, I suppose.
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