#25 My Last Day

Today was my last day. A day of paperwork and a lot of running around. I had to turn in my phone, but that would be the last thing to do, In the meantime, I would redirect the checkout of my ARC computer so that Boss could continue to use it, and proceed with a lot of other checkouts. I finished the report off, made copies and handed it in. At lunch, I went to the mall, bought cds and sleeves, then returned. In between checking out of departments and finishing my final paperwork, I somehow managed to burn cd copies of all of the pictures that I had taken while I was in Louisiana. One for each person in the department, along with a sheet of paper containing everyone's name address phone # and birthday.

"Tandeleo" asked if I was on speed or something. Coming from the original wild woman, I had to laugh. One by one, I said goodbye to everyone. Went back to CLS and said my goodbyes there, avoiding the bad cookies who even under threat, wouldn't touch me with someone else's ten foot pole. In between I finished more paperwork.

I believe I have stated it before, but the ARC fells entire forests to fulfill its paperwork requirements. It is one of the most archaic processes that I have ever gone through, but then I am both self employed and the boss. I have never been subjected to arcane processes and rituals in my real life. Of course I thought of twenty different ways to streamline this silly inefficient process and fifty different ways that the Red Cross would try to thwart me or anyone else who tried to change their dumb-ass process so that it was logical, or at least up to date. Thinking about it made me laugh and it pissed me off.

After, lunch. Which once again was made from a selection of cheetos, fig newtons and other donated trash food ever available in the canteen. We had one variety of fruit per day, so I pretty much lived on that before dinner as I didn't take lunch breaks except once when I went to a local restaurant called "Betty's Sweet Potato". The usual fruit provided by the ARC canteen was apples. One time, eating all of those apples made me think of Eve. Then it made me think of snakes....lol...then I started to think that maybe I was working for some of them.

Once the canteen tried to pass off that crappy canned water on the volunteers. What a laugh. the whole vat of those nasty white Anhauser Busch cans just sat there floating in the ice all day. Unsuspecting newbies would grab one, open it and take a swig. The resulting grimacing and spitting were hilarious. Into the trash the full cans went. We could have at least used that water to wash something, and I guess while we were at it, we should have recycled the cans....sigh.

Speaking of "what were they thinking", I finally got around to the mental health part of my check out. I waited with others outside of the cubicles where the mental health workers were giving their e-valls,(evaluations). FInally my name was called. I turned and was greeted by a truly strange and singular person. My....uh.... "mental health evaluator". Stunned though I was, she did manage to lead me into one of the sealed off cubicles that were reserved for the purpose of questioning the departing volunteers. I do not for the life of me remember the actual name of the "mental health professional" that checked me out that day. She and her appearance wiped the possibility of any other memory clean out of my head.

I will call her "Rhonda", just for clarity's sake. "Rhonda at 5'4" was average. The mousey brown hair which she wore with a headband to tuck it back was average too, except that it was dirty. The hair that is. Oh..the headband too. Her smock was dirty, as was her dress, except that it wasn't really a dress, it was a slip. Not a slip-dress, a slip. A dirty somewhat transparent slip. It was purple. Over that, "Rhonda" wore her red cross smock. That was really dirty. She sported torn stockings and with those wore ruby slippers. Yeah, you read that right. ruby slippers. The kind with the cheap glue-on spangles, only the shoes had seen better days and the spangles were falling off in several places.

"Rhonda" wore glasses. The cat-eye kind from the fifties. As if that picture was not enough, tucked into the pocket of her dirty ARC smock was a small stuffed tiger. The tiger had an official ARC badge with an official ARC number, and an official ARC photo on it...... of the tiger. "Rhonda asked me if I would like a hug? I declined. She then took the tiger out of her pocket pushed it towards me and asked if I would like to give the tiger a hug. I wondered if this was a test?

Ok, we had now established that the ARC "mental health professional" was officially or otherwise insane. What to do? Who was evaluating whom? You think I am kidding, but put yourself in my place. This fruit loop wanted me to hug her stuffed toy tiger that she had given a name and procured an official ARC ID badge for. If I didn't hug the tiger was I going to be evaluated as mentally deficient? If I did hug the tiger was I going to be evaluated as mentally deficient? We had already established that at least in some circles, working for the Red Cross might have established me as mentally deficient, but did I really want to confirm that?

In the end I did not hug the tiger, but I did think about it. Rhonda continued her evaluation, leaning towards me like Michelle Pfeiffer (yeah yeah...so you know how to spell it...who cares?), in that horror movie with Harrison Ford, intoning in a very low voice, asking if I had, " been disssturbed by anyyything I had sssseeeeen?" Well.....there was her, and Slidell, and the thunderingly inefficient and abusive way that the ARC was being run, but then I couldn't exactly say that now could I? I hesitated, but replied, "not really". She pressed, hissingly, "but ssssurely, there were ssssome thingsss that upssset yoooou?" Again, she was upsetting me now, but I sucked it up and again replied, "no, nothing that I can think of".

She leaned back suddenly, cocking her head like a dog. Tucking in her chin and raising her eyebrows she then asked, " and why do you think that isssss?" Turning her head even more sideways and cocking it to the other side as she ended the sentence. Think the nurse in "Young Frankenstein". What went through my head was, Wellllll...the system and resulting situation that the government and the ARC has created for volunteers and evacuees was blatently out of control, and had passed dangerous, about a month ago, but that somehow this fiasco was all being treated as: 1. normal, 2. par for the course, or 3.Huh? Is something wrong? Looks ok to me........ So where do I start? Or do I start? I will start, but not with her. I tell her that my nonplus is probably because I live in Los Angeles. Interestingly, that seemed to explain it to her.

Somehow I made it through what was surely the stupidest interview done by the looniest toon I have encountered in recent memory. As I left, she looked at me, smiled and said,"here, let Sam,(or whatever she called the damn thing), hug you. She then proceeded to assault me with her tagged stuffed tiger. I assume she put every volunteer mustering out through the same ordeal. Where the hell do the ARC find these people??? Did anyone finally turn on her and shove the damn Tiger head first into the trash? Or elsewhere? Was she ever caught and returned to the ward that she had apparently escaped from? I will never know.

Finally went over to transfer my phone, and saw boxes of discarded phones. Not just one or two, but close to 100 or so. These were phones that were going to be thrown out as they were useless. Some were broken, but most had answering messages that had their official codes changed by the user against policy, which rendered them useless to some extent to the next volunteer as with an unknown code, messages on those phones could not be retrieved. You would have thought that after all of those weeks of dummies changing the codes, some other dummy would have figured out to check the dang code on each phone before the last user disappeared. You would have thought.

Other than that, I was ordered to go to an ATM to take out $150 to pay for all of the extras that I was forced to purchase for my volunteer time. We were told to bring the most unbelievably stupid things, most of which I never used. Hey...they were stupid. Like high rubber boots when it hadn't been wet or even rained for weeks. Paper, office supplies and pens. Baton Rouge had enough office supplies to open its own Office Depot for crying out loud. Many of the stupid required purchases just sat in my suitcase for the duration, taking up space and weight. One chapter actually had their volunteers lug gallons of water with them. Other chapters had equally moronic requirements. There was no organization, continuity or consistency. Heck, there was no accurate information on the situation in Louisiana for that matter. It was an Emperor has new clothes situation through and through.

Although I believe my chapter and others did their best with the pointless directions they were given by the National office, at no time during my deployment was I even near anything larger than my own suitcase that needed lifting. The initial requirement at my chapter was that I had to be able to repeatedly lift 50 to 100 pounds,remember? Where did these guys get their information from? What a waste of everyone's time, what a waste of donated money. If it wasn't such a tragedy all around, you would have laughed out loud at the sheer foolishness.


Speaking of money, I had loads left on my ARC issued credit card when I went to check out. I had paid for many of my meals myself as a further contribution. The volunteers at the checkout desk were surprised, especially because of the number of days that I had been there. I wondered if somehow the Rockefellers had volunteered for the ARC, and were somewhere running up their ARC cards eating quail on toast points at the RC's expense or something. Perhaps some did, but I did not have that many expenses. I turned in my card there as the financial volunteer requested. He did give me some cash to get home from the airport with and catch a cab, so that was a nice touch.

So that was it, I was out! Not so fast....Before the day was over, Big Daddy would wring out of me every drop of volunteerism, do-gooding, fixingit, filling in, writing and organizing that he could possibly stuff in or drag out during my sorry self in my remaining hours. He even got Boss in on the act. There was still loads of work to do. They were going to miss me. Hell, I was going to miss them.

Apparently, the joint was breaking up. Some were staying in Baton Rouge, another contingent was being sent to New Orleans. There were different official disaster #'s to learn and official papers to go through. The ARC hadn't screwed up Baton Rouge nearly enough, they were now on to screw up New Orleans. I was asked if I would like to stay on and head a department in New Orleans. I actually would have if I had the time, but I had a home and a child to go back to, companies of my own to run and things of my own to fix. Maybe later.

Daddy and Boss had written my evaluation. They had recommended me for a management position. They had written glowingly of me, singing my praises in writing. It must have been the stress of the situation...lol. I in turn, told only the truth and said what great guys they were to work with. Silly Geese.

We ended the day with Daddy, Boss and I decided to go to dinner one last time. I don't remember everything, but I think that "Jaqui" may have tagged along. I do remember that it took forever to get to the place, and the dinner was in a nice restaurant. We ordered steak and such and each had one glass of wine to toast with. Which we paid for ourselves of course, as the ARC rightfully so, does not pay for alcohol, drugs or firearms. Probably for the best. We all hugged good night.

The restaurant had been at the end of the Baton Rouge earth, so it took me a good long while to get back to my shelter. As I entered, it was quiet. "Bob" had transferred so no snoring, and besides, there was almost no one left. I stayed up a while writing, and went to sleep after the alien barreled through the pipes one last time.I would leave tomorrow.

#24 Slidell...Part II

Today we all drive back to Slidell to do the walk through inspection. SInce I have been there, I go with "Mo".We take along "Anna", my only good recruit. Boss goes with cleaning boy and the environmental b-word. Driving down, we talk and talk and talk. We hear everyones past and present. We are girls yakking. We get there in no time flat. Same turn off, same houses with blue tarps,but this time we know where we are going, and there is no invented emergency.

We drive up and are greeted by the now familiar staff. There is still no water. Boss, the Boy and the b-word all go on an official tour of the joint with the staff Brass. "Mo", "Anna" and I peel off on our own, snapping pictures, smiling and talking under our breath. It is worse than we thought. Nothing in this shelter is regulation. Nothing about this shelter is safe. The food is all placed directly on the floor in the middle of the sleeping area. which is the only area. The cots abut the open food containers which are placed around randomly.

Most containers are open. Perishables, diapers, canned goods, paper goods, fruit, are all stacked on top of each other open and closed, with no regard to inventory or contamination possibilities. The cots are placed within inches of each other and inches of the food. We interview the volunteers and are told that the clients have been eating on their cots until today. They have to eat on their cots as there are no chairs or tables for them. There is also no refrigeration outside of one Coca Cola point of sale cooler that has no temperature gauge and that we can tell without one is way too warm to prevent bacteria from forming.

Leading this charge is "Anna", who back home is the manager of a popular restaurant. She is horrified at the conditions. "Anna" tells us that if any of these violations had happened at her restaurant, someone would have been arrested. This was just the tip of the iceberg. We realize that there are lots of elderly and diabetics at this shelter and the staff tells us that they have nothing for them to eat other than crackers. Crackers.... Many of these folks are on oxygen and bed ridden. I know we are all doing the best we can, but ai yi yi!

Someone else approaches us and tells us that the shelter Nurse wishes to speak to us privately. Nurse Nancy tells us that the incidents of illness are rising rapidly, that the bio hazards are stored right behind the only freezer in the shelter, and the meds in the fridge are surrounded by food and water. All violations. She also tells us that because of the storage problems, the clients have been helping themselves to food at night causing even more contamination and escalating the cases of diarreah that was increasing daily. Compounding that is the lack of water and facilities that threaten to possibly go on for days.

Through all of this, I am snapping pictures and the girls are taking copious notes. We get going finally, after I explained to Boss and the others the importance of Vienna Sausages being ordered for this shelter post haste. I took a lot of ribbing for it, but that is what was important to these clients, so nurtz to the nay sayers. Boss finally got that I was dead serious and promised to hand deliver that weenie greenie, (invoice), himself when we got back.

Before we drove back, the three of us decided to tour the area. "Mo" had been here before, so she pointed the car at the worst of it. Yesterday was a cake walk compared to this. More and more houses, more and more destroyed. Empty lots with just boards sticking up from the ground where houses used to be. Across the street fields and fields of what looked like large toothpicks and what used to be bits and pieces of homes. Every square inch was covered with the woody sticks. In one case we saw the front of a beautiful house near the water with a lovely palm tree still standing untouched, only to realize as we passed that only the front half of the house was intact. The entire back section was sheared off. Like when a kid takes a swipe of icing from a cake with his finger.

The girls and I continued into the woods.We saw that every building was collapsed, flattened or destroyed. In some places only the roof remained of what looked like a house of cards when it collapses. At other houses, thirty foot trees had been uprooted and lay on the roofs, or what was left of them. The trees and houses looked like battered old toys that kids had finished playing with and forgot to put away. It took our breath away. Deciding to drive farther in, we pass something that looks like piles of kindling. It was a house. The only thing left standing to let us know that, is a bright blue curved slide. One that used to be on the edge of a swimming pool. The house is gone, the pool is unvisible. Filled and covered with pick-up-stix. Just the blue pool slide remaining. It was weird.

Because we are near the water, boats are everywhere. Everywhere but in the water that is. Unless of course they are underwater, but then all we see is an occasional mast sticking up a foot or two to let us know what's down there. We see boats on the grass, in the trees, in houses, on houses. We see boats upside down, ripped in half. We see one boat way off in the trees, nose pointing straight down trapped in branches twenty feet up. That boat was at least fifteen feet long. We see boats on cars, cars on boats, boats on boats. The remains of a former seagoing people are everywhere. As we pass one woody area, we see trees festooned with crab pot and their red floats. It looks like a forest full of funky christmas trees decorated for the holidays. It makes us crack up. It almost makes us cry.

A we approach a large hangar-like building, on one side is a jeep upright but ripped apart, its tires shredded. We see that the corrugated sides of this building have been peeled back like a sardine can. Everything in it and around this building is decimated. Where one side has ripped off we can see eight perfect, retro, red cushioned bar stools......still bolted to the floor, standing neatly in a row in the middle of the carnage. Nearby is a Coke machine tossed like a dog toy. It must have been a restaurant or a bar. The image is stunning. We take pictures and press further on.

Turning into a road by the sea, is a long grey line of brush smoldering along the length of the road. It gives off a ghostly smoke floating ahead of us. The telephone poles all tilting precariously towards the road at an almost toppling angle. This reminds us of all of the pictures we have seen in magazines and in the movies of WWII. The clasic burning aftermath of war. What used to be houses are only empty concrete pads where houses used to stand. There is no kindling, there is no debris here. Just what could cling to the earth in the eye of the apocalypse. It is as though the earth has been scrubbed clean of human imprint. Hurricane whipped and scoured. One house alone, heavily damaged stands among tens of the missing. It is raised, still on its pilings, painted pepto bismol pink. We wonder why it survived when there is virtually nothing that remains of any other house for at least a mile?

Up the way, we see a big rig. It is torn in half. The cab is upside down on one side of the road. The battered thrty foot trailer is wrenched and twisted, lying across the street some three hundred feet away, inside of where another house used to be. Small trees somehow remain. That is amazing. Some of the trees have some sheets of clunky black stuff wrapped around them. We realize that it is layers of asphalt that have peeled off of the road like so much scotch tape, flown away and curling around anything left standing. Other layers of what used to be the road have been lifted and carried, laid in sections like so many mixed puzzle pieces on what used to be lawns.

There was little of what used to be road left. The wind had somehow torn it out and taken it somewhere else. We decided to stop. The girlz slowly opened the doors of the car, and one by one we unfolded ourselves to stand and look. We had become somewhat numbed to the destruction and total devastation in the past weeks, but this landscape truly looked as if bombs had been dropped and detonated, again and again. There are no words to express our hearts twisting as we looked at this mess. It takes a second, but we realize that here on this little road to what is now nowhere, there seems to be a cloak of complete and total silence surrrounding and muffling us and everything around us. There is an undescribable closeness to the air. We remark on it. The auditory sense is as if we were in some way miles underground, buffered by the earth and yet still somehow in the sun. There was not a sound to be heard. Nothing. No winds, no rustling of leaves. Our words once spoken somehow hung dead in the air and then clattered around us. It was as though the world had ended, and only we three had been left as witnesess.

When the shock wore off, we walked forward a bit, and noticed the strangest thing. Butterflies. Butterflies were everywhere. Flying, landing, opening and closing. They floated all around us. It was though every coccoon on earth had been dropped in Slidell Louisiana, and opened all at once. When the surprise of the butterflies began to subside, we noticed that there were actully a few small birds flying around among the insects, zipping about like so many little arrows. Although their sharp little songs were barely cutting through the dead air. It was a hopeful sign.

In thinking later about the loss that the people of Louisiana experienced and are still experiencing , one of the single strongest images that I will carry forever with me, was that barren landscape, the quiet, the butterflies, and the bird song.

"Anna", "Mo" and I got back into the car and made it back to the highway. On the way back, we saw a hand letterd sign posted to a tree on a lot where there used to be a home. It said" take a Break", "We will return","Not for sale". These people are a tough breed.

We stopped in a small town on the way at a sandwich shack that posted a sign reading" Shrimp lover parking only. All others will be shelled". We each ordered shrimp po boys. We didn't talk about what we'd seen. For the rest of the return trip. Instead, with me on the laptop, the three of us collaborating wrote up our entire report and the recommendation that this Slidell shelter be closed. By the time we got back to headquarters, the pictures had been uploaded and attached. All that remained was for us to print it out and sign it. That took about ten minutes.

After work we were whacked. I was grabbed by a bunch of people from the department, and went to dinner at some cheesy chain crab shack. We made jokes,insulted each other and decompressed. I didn't talk about the day, but it was on my mind. It still is. I was sorry that I hadn't thought to take a picture of the butterflies. I was sorry that it all happened in the first place. What was next?

#23 Slidell Part I

Oh I am tired!!! What the hell!!??? Wasn't this supposed to be easy!!??? Oh yeah....no...it specifically was not supposed to be easy. I forgot. Sorry about that. Get into work and start in on the paperwork lots of paperwork. Someone has thrown us a barbeque outside, I of course miss the Que, and end up with the dregs of chicken bits. So what else is new?

Suddenly there is an emergency. So what else is new again? Everything around this place is an emergency, unless it is a real emergency. A real emergency seems to be a signal to the paid staff and long timers to go to lunch, or get their nails done, or just go out and invent something else, that isn't actually an emergency. This was again, not a real emergency. Well not exactly.

Apparently, CBS News was planning to shoot a segment in the heavily damaged town of Slidell at one of our shelters. Unfortunately, that shelter didn't have enough blankets for the clients who were already sleeping on miserable cots in crowded stupid conditions. Bad press = emergency. Hmmmm.....not having enough blankets for the clients is an emergency, but not because CBS News is going down there to shoot a segment. Not having enough blankets for the clients is an emergency because the clients are cold without blankets.

This may be a warm state, but in these cavernous concrete bunkers that we have turned into shelters, it is as cold as a witch's nursing part when the air conditioning is on.....and it has to be on. It is beyond uncomfortable not to have a blanket to sleep under in those conditions, but this was an ACR emergency because the ARC would look bad to America when devastated evacuees living in shelters being filmed for CBS News didn't look perky and happy because they were cold....because they didn't have enough blankets, that the ARC hadn't supplied them with to begin with. Get it? Sigh.....One wonders how long these clients went without blankets before CBS decided to take a look. Interesting definition and timing of an emergency.

...And while I am ranting, why the hell isn't the Federal Government supplying the dang blankets and shelters and help in the first place??? The Red Cross is supposed to be a stop-gap aid, not completely take the place of our totally useless government in an emergency. That was never a part of the ARC job description! The Feds don't show up to save the locals from the storm, then they pointed the finger at anyone or thing in sight other than themselves as the culprit. To add insult to injury, these jokes for human beings continue to check out the pigeons flying by and twiddle their thumbs while people are still lost, homeless, peniless, injured, destroyed and without blankets!!!............................................... End of lecture # 361.

Anyway, this BS all came from the top brass on down to we the underlings. "Banana Man", who I have previously refered to as, "The Old Man", I have since decided deserves no respect or distinction, this rude, pitiless, mis-begotten "top rat" of the whole Baton Rouge mess apparently ordered this mission his own self. From what I have seen, its about the only thing he has done since I have been here. He is a useless arrogant appendage that should have been amputated eons ago. What is the ARC thinking??? Apparently the Hornet thought it was a good idea too. Now what is she thinking? Even after everything between us, I truly thought better of her.

In any case, I was suddenly assigned to roar down to Slidell, beat CBS, and make it look like: Hey.....? Blankets???? Why of course we have blankets! That would be bordering on criminal not to supply our freezing clients with blankets! My new job: Liar to the stars...I mean the press....I mean America. I am not amused. I am told I will be the hero shoudl I beat the media there. I think my cape should be tucked between my legs if this is what constitutes heroism.

So ok, blankets. Where the heck am I gonna get blankets? Aha! The famed River Walk shelter is shutting down. I will go nab blankets at River Walk. Plan is in place. I have the keys to Moosie, and am ready to roll. Thing is, I can't go alone. I am fine going alone. I want to go alone. Boss thinks that I am safer alone than having to babysit any of our staff who would go with me. However "rules" dictate that female staff don't go alone to dangerous areas. Since the hurricane, Slidell is considered a dangerous area. For some time, female staff were not allowed at all in some areas of the state due to the dangers. Just male volunteers accompanied by the Army. It was that bad. Slidell has been devestated. Flattened. It ain't good. I ain't going alone. Besides which, Big Daddy has forbidden it.

About an hour ago, some guy named "Bobby" from California came around looking to transfer to our department. Said he would do anything. This might be that. My alternative is "Jaqui" She that might be a he. the "Jaqster" is oh so eager to go with me. Although, truly she is not that bad in short spurts, I think that this particular trip might be two hours of torture by "Jaqui", so I go looking for "Bobby". "Bobby" is a Mexican guy from my neck of the woods. Thank god....someone I might be able to relate to. In fact, our department is populated by several sunny Californians, so "Bobby" might fit right in. Mid sized and squat, "Bobby" looks like one of those Toltec gods off of an urn. I know nothing about him at all other than that. It seems like a great idea. Its interesting that in this situation, we are al reverting to the fifties descriptively. I am the Jew, "Bobby" is the Mexican guy, then there is the Puerto Rican Woman and the Italian. It goes on and on....Sigh......

We tell "Jaq" that she ain't along for the ride, and I go fetch "Bobby". Yeah man, he is so up for it, so off we go. He drives, I navigate. We get to the River Walk in no time flat, and go tearing into the loading bay. Meeting us there is "Georgette". Remember her from Shreveport? The other troublemaker? Well "Georgette" has been the logistics coordinator for the River Walk since we snagged her from Shreveport/hell.

Anyhoo, There she is with a bunch o' blankets. In we stuff 'em, along with toys, sheets towels. Anything at all that we can grab to take with us, figuring that if the Slidell shelter hasn't been given something as basic as blankets, then god only knows what else they are doing without. I am hoping/assuming that some boss "greenied "/invoiced at least some of this stuff prior to our arrival. We know for certain that the blankets were. Everyone on the dock at River Walk is there to help. Bosses think they are rescuing the ARC from CBS News. All of the volunteers involved figure we are rescuing Slidell clients from the ARC.

Loaded up, and off we go. Volunteers are good people. They come from all over the globe. They want to help because today's victims of disaster may be any one of us in some future crisis. They work overtime, past time, with little time to themselves, few breaks under gruelling pressure cooker conditions. Its amazing that most of them are still standing. Sure there are a few bad apples, but they are the exception, not the norm. Other volunteers root them out and turn them in if they can. God help you if you are screwing over some client. the volunteers will tear you limb from limb. Oh....I am not talking about staff by the way. Volunteers and clients are the enemy to many of the staff and long term volunteers. Those without lives or other existence. Excepting my department of course. They are all great and good....lol.

So into the woods. Driving along, we figure out somehow to get where we are going. On the way I hear the life of "Bobby" it is long and colorful. It has involved the law, and not in a good way. ARC not doing its job screening again. FOr that matter, I don't think that the ARC has done any screening....at least they didn't screen me or anyone I had met. Good thing in this case as "Bobby" is a good guy and a hard worker. Our first clue at to what has gone on in the storm is as we are approaching Slidell. We see that the trees in on either side of the road are snapped off at about the level of a two story house. All of them. It is weird. Then we see the billboards ripped up from the ground and crumpled like so many wads of discarded paper.This was looking eerie. We had no idea.

Coming up along "Bobby's" left was a pile. well not exactly a "pile",because a pile would be a mound of stuff in one lump. this was an endless smoldering mountain of wood, debris and the bits and pieces of peoples' lives. It was about three stories high, and went on in a flowing dune for a mile or more. It scared us. We couldn't pry our eyes from it. It was also confusing, because we had never seen anything like it. What did it mean? Was this trash? Clean up? We weren't really sure what the hell it meant, but we knew that it couldn't be good.

The road began to narrow. It was a freeway, but we were being funnelled off. We could see that the opposite direction was closed down completely. There was a long line to exit the road, but we were in a hurry. We pulled out our get out of jail free Red Cross badges, skirted the line and turned right at the exit. The directions got a little sketchy from there. We pulled into the only gas station in sight. We could see the houses across the road from us. Except for the blue tarps covering all of their roofs, the line of houses looked intact, and pretty good for that matter. I walked up to the doors of the mini mart of the gas station, and it was then I noticed the chains across the door.

I looked inside the mart, and it was destroyed. Cans, bottles, cheetos, all over the floor of the store it was dark inside. I turned and saw the bags over the gas nozzles. I hadn't noticed that either. We take so much for granted. Its as if your brain simply completes the picture for you without you really having to look. "Bobby", was busy asking strangers where the heck this shelter was.

None of the folks at the gas station knew, because none of them were from the area. All of these people had come down from neighboring states to make a buck off of the distraught. The guy at the pumps next to our car was an especially vile specimen. He was short, dirty and ugly. His thinning Raggedy Andy hair was scattered to the wind. He had a violent bubbling red and purple birthmark that covered half of his face, and dragged down one eye so that it drooped and watered constantly. To detail the portrait, this joe was missing a goodly number of his choppers. He was drunk. You could smell it from where we stood 12 feet away. He was a crude cruel looking scum of the earth. This is who had come down to,"help".

All around us, in cars and trucks bearing license plates from everywhere *but* Louisiana, there were twenty more like him . We asked this creep if he was familiar with the shelter that we were looking for. He told us that he "was a f***ing roofer from Michigan", and that, "no, he couldn't F***ing help us". God help the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

We drove on looking at the useless map that we had been given. Looking at the blue tarped houses that were getting closer. We saw as we neared, Boats thrown on lawns with no water nearby. Trees ripped apart and RVs tumbled over like toys. We turned around and drove the other way. We finally found the shelter in a place that had no relation to the map that we had been given. Over a bridge and at the end of an otherwise empty spit. It looked like it was not completely built.

Rushing in, we figured we had beat CBS, only to find that they had been there about the time that we had left Baton Rouge. It didn't matter to us. The clients still needed the blankets, and we had them. "Bobby" went to unload the Moose, and I went to get help for him. Who do I run into, but, "Amy", from day one at my shelter. This is where she has been sent for her assignment. We said our hi's, and she gave me an upbeat overview of the site. As I went inside I saw that our first impression was right. This shelter wasn't finished. Not even kinda. What the heck was going on?

I saw cots amid food, and even more food. Dry goods scattered everywhere. Doors wired shut, wires exposed, walls torn up and worse, some kind of pump had blown, and there was no water. None for washing, none for cleaning, no water for sinks or toilets. I spoke to some of the staff, but they had developed Stockholm Syndrome, and were more concerned that I would turn in the fact that they were in a half built wreck of a building, than the fact that they had clients and themselvesin an unsafe shelter in unsafe conditions. Made my head spin. I knew we were coming here tomorrow for a walk through, so I took mental notes as to what to look for.

"Bobby" had finished, the unload, and we were ready to turn around and go back. We headed out of the shelter, talking to a few clients along the way. These clients loved the Red Cross. They all wanted to shake our hands. Because the ARC volunteers lived day in and day out at this shelter with the clients, they shared everything, food, lack of water, sleeping arrangements and had formed a tight bond. Most of these clients had lost everything, and the sense that someone understood what they were going through was important. Many asked if the ARC was going to send any more VIenna Sausages. Huh?

I went back in and asked the ARC staff about the little weenies. The staff informed us that that particular product had taken on a singular cachet among the clients at this shelter. Arguments had even broken out about them. A "greenie"/requisition had been put in a week prior, but still no saucies. The situation was getting dire. The staff seemed as stressed about it as the clients. Vienna Sausages eh? I could see that when you have lost everything, it is the little things, no pun intended, that become important. It is similar to prison in that way. Tubular canned meat products, processed to within an inch of their lives into a overly salty somewhat unpalatable end result had taken on an overwhelming importance in this shelter. These wee weenies were a serious matter to them, no matter what I thought. Ok then. I think I understood. I would be absolutely sure to ask about the hot doggies in a tin when we got back.

Before ripping back to Baton Rouge, "Bobby" and I decided to go have a look around Slidell. We drove in the direction of the blue tarped roofs, thinking that would be a good place to start. As we got closer, we saw that although the houses looked intact, they were definitely not. In this area, the water had risen to second floor level destroying all of the contents of the house if not ripping the things out of the house and scattering it outright. On either side of each and every house and across the street were smaller versions of the dunes of trash that we had seen earlier on the way into town. Couches, tables, bedding, toys. appliances, chairs, tanning lotion. We saw all of it, and all of it was totally destroyed. Anything and everything that any one of us might have in our own homes was in one or most of those plies of detritus. Ruined. The sheer volume of personal things was overwhelming.

I stopped to take some pictures so that I would remember this in detail. The water marks on the walls, the marks on the houses made by rescue crews telling everyone how many died in this house or that, or if there were none. Luckily, there were almost none. The spray painted marks made by insurance companies letting all know that this house had been inspected. The boats on the lawns picked up and thrown like so many dice on a craps table.

The one image that has stayed with me to this day on that forlorn street was the dishwasher that had been ripped apart and thrown. Two baskets that used to be in the washer lay amidst items that had formerly summed up peoples day to day lives. One basket contained all of the dishes just as they had been placed by the homeowners when they had loaded them up to be washed.The second basket was about thirty feet away, the glasses and cups placed in the basket in the same careful way. Nothing was broken, nothing was cracked. It was as though the tableware had just been loaded in to be washed, only it was all akimbo on some random trash heap now. Untouched. It was all we could do to keep from crying. and this was one of the "good" streets.

As we drove farther we saw cars that had been dragged up from somewhere wet, completely trashed. In the end, there would be three hundred thousand cars recovered from the affected areas. Each car would have to be stripped. Tires disposed of separately from useless engines. Toxic batteries taken out and dismantled. It is and will be a nightmare, and that is just the beginning.

In every area we would see refrigerators with the words, "full", painted on them, taped shut. "White teams" were hired to remove home appliances which had to be dismantled one by one to remove the toxic elements in each one, like the mercury in the refrigerators. There were hundreds and thousands of these too. Where was it all going to go? how were the governments going to fix this, dispose of that? As we all know, they haven't.


"Bobby" and I drove on. We saw giant 40' boats tossed around like potato chips. Some were piled on top of each other like pick up stix. Several of these former luxury yachts were thrown into and onto houses and apartments. We saw houses that had collapsed into themselves, gigantic trees lifted up and thrown onto roofs. Cars in trees,suspended in mid air...... Upside down. Another three story apartment complex had its bottom floor totally stripped down to nothing but 2x4's and studs by the intensity of the winds, while the two floors above it were so unscathed that bycicles and shade umbrellas still sat untouched on patios. We drove to the end of one road where a salvage company was dragging up boats that had sunk. They were lined up tilted on the grass. Ghost ships dripping algae as if they were being prepped for some Disney movie. It had been some storm. Driving back towards the highway, we passed one apartment building with a simple, plaintive, spray painted message: " I want to come home".

As we headed back to Baton Rouge, we didn't talk much. we had seen too much. Part of why you volunteer for a disaster such as this, is because you want to see it first hand. We had. It wasn't even the worst of it, it wasn't even much of it. What had happened here that our government was so oblivious to the danger and the outcome? We were ashamed that anyone had to experience something of this magnitude with no help and no support. Seeing house after house destroyed, and the inhabitants, now our clients and what they were reduced to made us even more ashamed. If nothing else, it gave us a renewed compassion,and an empathy that couldn't be gained only from watching news reports. We would never forget.


We got back to HQ late. Dropping off "Bobby", I ran into two people from another department who had a clipboard, a flashlight and a miner's light on one of thier heads. They were going into the parking lot to try to find some of the missing rental cars. By the end of my deployment, the ARC had apparently misplaced or lost hundreds of them. Our HQ was no different. "Bobby" and I said our goodbyes. I went back to Moosie and began to turn out of the lot.

Just as I was almost gone, who do I see but Big Daddy and some of the Material Girls. They stop, I stop, and we all decide to go to dinner. After this day, I needed a break. Off we went to some rib joint down the way. Walking in to be seated, we pass a no necked man about the size of a volkswagon. He was an amazing sight, and we couldn't tear our eyes from him. He was sitting on a stool, that we couldn't see because of his girth. I could almost swear that the steel pole that held it was bending, but I digress.

Daddy, "Mo", "Minna" and I were seated at a plank style table. I showed a slide show on my computer of the things we saw that day. Others from the restaurant gathered around to watch. No one asked questions, the pictures spoke for themselves. Apparently at some point, "Mo had whispered to the waitress that it was Daddy's eighty- third birthday. The waitress was thrilled. Daddy was not. He is sixty two and it was not his birthday. To make it more interesting, we also told her that I was his wife. Waitress-girl gushed all night how Daddy looked so good for his age, and married to such a young woman too. At one point we all practically laid down on the seats we were laughing so hard. This went on for the whole night, and only got worse. The climax came when the excited waitress brought out the birthday cake and the whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday to poor Daddy. We all about strangled ouselves out-cackling each other. What a bunch of hens.

Night ended at last. I felt as though I had been attacked by elves and beaten with sticks. What a day. And it was just another day in this screwed up situation. If you like stress, intensity and constantly having to think on your feet in a situation that will change completely from one second to the next and inevitably screw itself up some way, no matter how hard you try, then join the Red Cross in a disaster. It is certainly not for everyone, but we were happy and proud to do the best job that we possibly could.

Finally got back to the shelter about midnight. Stayed up writing on the computer, finishing some more drafts of fliers that I had promised for other departments. Tomorrow we all go back to Slidell. Can you believe it?

xxoo

Lisa

#22 Day Who's who.

This brings us to my new department and inevitably to ""Tandaleo". How the hell does any organization allow someone like "Tandaleo" to get past their radar?? Description: Short, heavy, bottle blond. Diabetic, pop-eyed chronic drinker, possibly bi-polar. Nasty nasty temper, manipulative, unreasonable, erratic, dramatic, overbearing, mean . On the up side: Loud, sarcastic, funny, quick witted and really at times kinda fun. She's a lotta laughs. Look in the dictionary under: "train wreck". For some bizarre reasons she likes me. For some bizarre reason, I kinda like her too. Go figure.

"The Material Girls". At least that's what we call them "Minna", "Mo" and "Jaqui". We loove them. "Minna" is a tall dark haired mama, thin and wiry, married with children, possessed of a smile that goes ear to ear. She is also a very efficient employee. "Mo" is the actual Lesbian at the fort. Of course for the first few days of contact, yours truly had like no idea whatsoever. In fact, so far, I had thought that just about every woman in sight was over on that side of the fence, but her. Shows to go ya, that you can't trust me at all in this department. Anyhoo, "Mo", is tall, no nonsense and blond. Looks like a slightly butch surfer girl. She also has an ear to ear smile, and is as raunchy as a Hustler magazine, only in the pink version. We all love her to death too. "Mo" doing her job is like sending Sherman in to take Baton Rouge.

Ahhhh "Jaqui". Hmmmmm......how do I put this? We all think that there is the distinct possibility that "Jaqui" may be a manski. Ok...she looks like a girl...sort of....ok..I mean she looks like a girl. She is attractive, thin, taller than average. Dark and of indeterminate nationality, race, and or background. All of the correct parts in the correct places, only something is amiss. Or a mister. For one thing, she wears a big poufy wig. I can't help looking at the thing each time I talk to her. Secondly, she just doesn't relate in any tangible way to any of the other girls,including "Mo", who came up with this theory in the first place if I remember correctly. Thirdly, well...I don't quite know what thirdly would be, except that she might be a guy. "Jaqui" is oh so quiet and proper, unless of course she is busy popping out something that you just can't believe came out of her mouth. Some weird non-sequiter that brings the room to a full tilt halt when she says it. I don't know how to make this clearer, but then if it was clear in the first place, I wouldn't have to would I? "Jaqui" does her job, although she does have a tendency to winge over it and everyone else's job from time to time. Hey, maybe she is a girl.

So part of today was spent on writing about yesterday's walkthrough at Shreveport, and my resulting report. That which has never been written before at the ever amazing ARC. Just think about it, I feel like Dr Livingston...I presume. Apparently, no one in anyone's memory contained in this derelict old building can remember anyone doing a photo walkthrough of a site. Now that is just sick.

In other words, all of this time, pre-me, the ARC has been throwing away perfectly good donation money on shelter sites due to sheer ineptitude salted with a dash of laziness. I mean no one has bothered to take pre-use photos, or even post use photos until moi? Yew have got to be kidding? Why don't we just burn the cash and charge admission? It would make more sense. When I brought up the question, one of the long termers told me that we , "didn't have the time". Damn. Didn't have an hour to walk through and document what was right and wrong either before or after we had used the joint for our nefarious housing purposes. Ergo, Mr Owns-The_Place can say:"Sob sob....woe is me....this was the Taj Mahal until the American Red Cross got aholt of it. Alas, alak.....sob sob...guess the ARC will just hafta pay bundles of dough to bring this dung heap..I mean magnificent edifice back to its formerly sartorial splendor....And then we apparently do. Yark!!!!

Well LOGIC WOMAN to the rescue. Or at least Handy dandy camera and computer to the rescue I guess. So I wrote up the walkthrough and attached the pictures, et voila! Instant Protocol. Or so says Big Daddy. I spend the rest of the afternoon doing show and tell with my computer, teaching the rest of the somewhat reluctant Logistics staff the new and future permanent way to do a walkthrough. Photos and narrative. Ain't I special? The girls took it better than the boys, that's for sure. Gals sucked it up, Guy thought I sucked. The usual division of opinion. Like it or not this is now ARC protocol for walk throughs. They have to be kidding? Apparently not.


In the midst of all of this protocol crap, Boss walks up to me and tells me under his breath that "they", want to hire me on permanently. Paid. I of course took Boss man to be speaking of invisible aliens, as the only alternative available would be the All American Red Cross, and we knew that was not a possibility. Not in this dimension at least. Boss swore that he had heard rumor, I was ergo convinced that I was being punked in the worst way. Next up to bat was Big Daddy, who sidles up to myself, and whispers to me that the ARC ought to be paying me. Would I consider hiring on to the dark forces for lucre? I was guessing by now that this was Doggy Daddy's bright idea, and so it was. Had me going for about a tenth of a sec there. Daddy's plan was to put the bug in the ear of the forces that be to hire me to overhaul their sorry rear ends and make everything right. Yep...that was going to happen soon. I told him that I would hire on to consult for money, but they would never listen to anything I have to say. The ARC would hire me when hell freezes over. That's a fact.

Big Daddy. Big Daddy as I said before, had been an honest by god colonel in the Army. As he explained it, he had been, "a spook" in other words, a spy, which resulted in further explaining and much doubling over in hilarity when he used this description to our local self proclaimed felon/thug/former gang member that annoyed....I mean worked in our department. "Joey" told the tale of being an "OG" Original Gangster. Shot, knifed, mugged and mugger. Jailed and jacked. Jammed up an jammer upper The Joe portrayed himself on the fringe with a criminal record as long as your arm, oh but he was now reformed. In reality, "Joey" was most likely a grocery bagger from Compton, but he did like to show his colors to get a rise out of anyone who would bite.

One Day the Dad, the thuglet and another volunteer, also black and from the west were driving back from some recon mission. Thuggie asked Daddy what he used to do. Daddy replied "spook in the Army" Thug was unfamiliar with the terminology in any sense other than the Jim Crow back in the day sense and felt as though a thorough pummelling of Daddy might just be in order. "Joe-bob" proceeded to quite vocally express his very strong opinion, much to Daddy's confusion. In between laughing like hell and random riotous snarfs of the nasal sort, the western volunteer attempted to explain to Thugster the espionage take on "spook", and to Daddy the venacular of the same. It apparently took a while through the tears and rolling around on the floor of the car gasping for a breath between choking on laughter. She of course was the only one who thought it was funny which of course made it even funnier. Cured Pops of the "spook" line for at least a little while though.

Mid day, we are told that we are all to go and inspect a local church shelter, so we all pile into a few cars and shoot off to the church. Its not that far from HQ, which is tweaked, because this is a bustling city full of people who live here. The shelter thing does just twist the brain around a little bit, but then when you think about it, we are all staying in shelters and so it seems is half of Louisiana. "Nough said.

Get to the church and we are given a run down on the staff prior to entry. I tell the two new ones to please listen and not speak if they can help it so that the staff doesn't feel cornered and get their back up. There are five of us. As soon as we get there, we all introduce ourselves, and Boss starts talking to the big church boss in charge. From what we understand, the clients have done thousands of dollars of damage, and the church wants the red Cross to again scrub down and replace everything. "Cootie Sydrome" again. Again, there has been no prior photo walk through done. Again, I have brought my camera.

The two recruits can't keep their yaps shut, a serious problem with the female who is wound tighter than a top. I have no one to blame but myself as I recruited them. She is an environmental engineer. He has a cleaning service in his home state. Sounds like they would be great for our department no? No. From all appearances, she is here to be in charge. Show the world htat she is better smarter sharper than anyone on the planet. She is there to kill something or someone. She is one unhappy puppy. I gotta remember to look up once in a while when reading a resume dang it. He is going through a bad divorce. Two days into his deployment we have all heard all of it. It is not pretty, but he is sorta ok. She is sorta not. We will have to live with them. Mea Culpa.

Walk through begins. Armed National Guard troops are posted everywhere. Clients are everywhere. The building is like a giant evacuee anthill. We go hall by hall, room by room, documenting and taking notes. Boss has made a bunch of ccolorful Cat's Cradle loops for the kids, and is busy teaching them the game. I am almost the only one who can do the game, but he is persistent. Kids do love it even if they can't do it. He and we teach them anyway.

In one hallway I come across an interesting sign. It says something about clients leaving bags of body fluids in bags in the halls, and threats to lock doors. Apparently some of the clients have been sneaking hookers through the back at night. One wonders if the "girls", are taking ARC credit cards. I so do not want to know. One of the things we do notice is the bleach stains on the carpets all over.

A sure sign of the Red Cross is bleach stains. The RC founder, Clara Barton who began the ARC in the 18oo's dictated the use of bleach for cleanliness. The ARC still adheres to that for some stupid reason, but then the ARC is still having volunteers and clients fill out gigantic stiff paper forms with carbon paper for f's sake. Oh yeah...I forgot, those forms can be folded into handy dandy folders. ARC origami if you will. There are only a handful of us at the ARC who have noticed that Clara Barton has been dead for quite a while, and that the rest of the world seems to have entered the twentieth century without her. The majority of the ARC apparently still worship at her dusty altar.

While everyone else was jotting and noting and schmoozing with bosses, I recorded all on a digital card, then slipped off and happened to find the departing manager, who told me that the church had already voted to pay for repairs itself, and that some meddling somewhat racist deacons' wife was the one making all of the noise about clean up. This manager told me that the church fully expected the type and scope of damage, and wished to take care of it. That it was not seen as a problem, and that there were twenty deacons at this church so as far as the church was concerned, the old trout could go whistle dixie...hmmm...whistle dixie. Perhaps that is a poor choice of musical selection considering the local.

My new info was confided to the group. It was a relief, as we had been gearing up for a chess match. Meaning, leave the church as we had found it, but no massive redecorating project a la the desires of unnamed wives of deacons. Whew!! We all said our goodbyes, took our notes and went back to HQ to write the whole thing up. Not me this time thank the lord. Or at least thank Boss and Big D.

End of the day. Where did it go? paper and more paper. Forms, protocols, lectures. What the heck? How did I get here from there I ask you? I am tired. went to din din, went to the shelter which is thinning out considerably since they plan on closing this one soon. Volunteers have slowed to a trickle, and I am still here. Cots are folding up and disappearing, Blankets are being bagged, air matresses are being deflated and stored. Looks like the ARC is giving it all over to the church which makes no damn sense at all as it was donated to the ARC, not the Hebron Baptist Church.

What the heck does the ARC plan to do in the next go round? Get more donations? Not from me. After seeing all of the waste, I will be damned if I give a penny to the good ol' ARC as much as I admire most of the organization. This donation and distribution thing is just a royal mess. In my time here I have witnessed massive wastes of money time and resources. It is supremely discouraging. I really pray that they get a handle on it before some doo doo hits some fan somewhere and you know it will. My time is another thing. I will give my time. In any case, my time is almost up, and the shelter is almost empty. Whats up with that? I plan to stay here until I go. I don't mind the drive, after all, I am from Southern California. Land of the long haul. I am in this for the long haul.

See you tomorrow.

xxoo

L