Trump has promised Texas all the resources of the government for “Harvey” but right now, Right Now:
- shelters are already open,
- semi-trailer trucks are already headed for Texas,
- food serving trucks are already headed for Texas,
- Volunteers from Red Cross are already on the way or staged in a safe place waiting for the storm to abate
And I could go on and on. When Katrina hit, I was already on my way as a Red Cross Volunteer to Houston where 35,000 survivors came to stay in the Astrodome Stadium. Before Bush and FEMA decided there was an emergency…Before Katrina hit, the Red Cross had already asked permission for, and had been turned down, to set up a shelter in the Super Dome.
The shelters that are open now don’t just appear out of thin air. Paid staff and volunteers for Red Cross research, map out and pre-arrange shelters across the nation because no one knows where a tornado will hit, where an earthquake will occur, a flood will happen and on and on. Whenever something happens, a few phone calls and the shelters will be open, already inspected and safe.
Across the nation sitting at food warehouses are semi-trailer trucks already filled with food waiting for a tractor to back under them. With an advance notice of an emergency, such as with a hurricane, I am sure these trucks are already on the way, probably from areas as far removed as here in Kansas City. The local Red Cross offices that have a food feeding truck will already have qualified drivers headed for Texas loaning their own trucks for the effort.
Meeting points for these trucks and the semi-trailer trucks will be at pre-arranged places already scouted by the local Red Cross. At that point, there will be facilities set up to start cooking hot food for the feeding trucks to begin taking food to areas without electricity and other utilities. I know that on one of the hurricanes I worked, a volunteer group from the Southern Baptist Convention were there with a mobile kitchen (they have many them in the south) and we all met at the same place because of pre-planning by the Red Cross. In other cases, they may bring in other agencies to cook. The first day that it is safe to enter the area, mobile food trucks will be there feeding people. Let me repeat, on the first day. Of course, the reason that it is known that the area is safe will be because the Red Cross has sent in evaluators to make sure the area is safe and to map out routes to serve those in need.
With what little I have shown above, you may start to realize that the Red Cross can do what it does not just because, not only of the volunteers, but because of volunteer agencies and institutions that allow the use of their facilities. I would love to be on my way as a volunteer for Red Cross, but age (75) and some health issues mean I will miss this event. I do want to share some of my experiences in ’05 when we had 35,000 people show up at Houston without anything, many times even identification. I spent 3 months that year as a volunteer and the situations that occurred could not have been predicated or planned by anyone. But we made do and took care of people while the government sent around requisitions for permissions to do which many times became lost, denied, or just forgot…
BEFORE THE STORM
I got a call that volunteers would be pre-positioned at Houston, Texas for a major hurricane coming into the area of New Orleans. We arrived at Houston and waited for the hurricane to hit and see where we would be sent. The second night we were asked to attend a meeting at the Astro Dome.
There were about 30 of us there and a paid Red Cross staff member addressed our group.
He told us that we needed to split into two groups and one group would work a shift from 6 pm at night until 6 am in the morning. The other group would spend the 12-hour shift working during the day. You will be working 12 hour days and there will be no time off. He explained to us that we would be sitting up cots that night and that we should expect a large number of people to be coming in sometime that night. He went on to give us this advice:
“You are Red Cross people and you know what to do!”
At the time, we were unaware of the magnitude of the storm that had hit New Orleans and was not aware that we had people coming who had spent time in the Super Dome and on the freeways outside of the city.
My group would work days, so we went back to our hotel and gathered some rest.
When I arrived at the Astro Dome (a completely enclosed football stadium) the next morning, I saw that the entire football field had cots lined up in rows. Every cot touched the next cot, then a space, then two more cots. A second row was placed at the foot of the first row. Then an aisle was left and then a double row again ran parallel across the field. Some of the cots were already filled, the rest were filling up as a constant stream of buses brought in more displaced people from New Orleans. Eventually, we would have close to 35,000 people in the stadium before the fire department came in and told us we had to move some out to another location,
If you have ever been in a major football stadium, you know that there are ramps leading to different levels for people to enter and exit. These ramps are wide and as the field filled, we placed cots on both sides of these ramps and eventually when we had no more room and people were still coming in, the homeless people would start sleeping in the seats. That is when the fire department came in and we had to move a large group across the street to a large conventions center.
Try to picture these people who literally had only the clothes on their backs. They didn’t have blankets. Most didn’t even have their purse or billfold or any kind of identification. Women with small children seemed to be in the majority. Completely at our mercy for food, water, shelter and any other needs they would have.
None of the Red Cross volunteers had ever experienced anything of this type or magnitude. And our instructions were:
“You are Red Cross people and you know what to do!”
So, where did thousands of cots come from?
More tomorrow! Part I of 5