Charlie's Rants & Raves

Well, I decided to go back to the Astrodome to help out after Ana came home yesterday. As we last left off, I came back from the 'Dome at 2:00PM. Ana went to work and came back. I was out the door going back to the 'Dome at midnight. Well, here's what happened.

First of all, the number of volunteers dropped significantly. They said that there were around 2600 volunteers on Saturday. When I went back at midnight, there were about 30. Still a decent number considering what time it was.

Well, our first task was to move 20 unused cots/blankets/pillows from the Reliant Center to Reliant Arena. OK, no problem. Did I mention that there were failures of communications between people there? We get to Reliant Center. They don't know what we're talking about. After about half an hour, they tell us which ones to take. OK. Now the long trek. Reliant Arena is on the whole other side of the Reliant park complex. It was a nice long walk. OK, we get there and we were instructed to put the stuff in the "Isolation" area. Where the hell was that? No one at Reliant Arena knew. We wandered a bit before someone finally said to take it upstairs. Geez, use your walkie talkie once in a while. And once done, begin the trek back to Reliant Center again.

Well, our next assignment was to go back to help clean up before breakfast at Reliant Arena. Yeah, the place we just came back from. So another long trek over there. This is where I met Marthe (pronounced Martha). She worked for the Museum of Health and Medical Science. This was her first time volunteering for the Hurricane Katrina evacuees. She asked about my experiences and things like that. She was quite cheery. She told me that her and her friend were trying to volunteer the day before (Saturday), but traffic was insane. She said she may have came at the time of the most activity in the area. Probably so.

Well, we finally make it to Reliant Arena where we are met by a Red Cross employee. She informs us what we will probably doing (which was clean the area before breakfast). She told us what was going on there. There were about 6000 people in Reliant Arena. We were instructed to wear gloves (which we weren't instructed to do yesterday). While waiting for the go ahead to do anything, I looked at the message boards placed on the wall. Then I thought, well, these people are placing messages on the message board searching for people that may be in another location (i.e. Astrodome or Reliant Center). I don't think that there was any coordination to get all of the information together so that people could easily locate one another if they were in separate buildings. Only people that went to Reliant Arena would see messages posted by other Reliant Arena evacuees.

We were informed that the cleaning crew cleaned the breakfast area for us. Well, then we were given the task of roaming the three locations within Reliant Arena where people were situated. They suggested that we team up, guy/girl for safety reasons. Since I had talked a bit with Marthe, we both decided to team up together. We took the arena area itself (floor and stadium seating). The other 2 areas were long hallways. Well, all we had to do was walk up and down the aisles and see if we could clean up a bit (pick up loose trash). We encountered several people that were still awake, some kids just laying there with their eyes opened, and things of that sort. Well, our area had maybe 1500 people. Four of us were roaming the area. Marthe and I chit chatted a while to pass the time while walking up and down the aisles, over and over. Did I mention that it was frickin' cold in there? I don't know why the kept the thermostat on like 50, but it was cold. Marthe and I covered a couple people up with their blankets and things like that. After a while, Marthe said she was thirsty and was going to get a drink and asked if I needed one. I told her that I was OK, and that was pretty much the last I saw of her. Not that she went home or anything, she just hung out with the guy serving drinks.

Well, I continued trolling the aisles and found a lady that needed assistance to get to the bathroom. She needed a wheelchair and in times like this, wheelchairs are a commodity. I found one that had the initials HCHD (Harris County Hospital District) painted on it, so I knew that no one there owned it. Well, I began taking it and this lady started yelling at me (well, not loudly). She was like "What the fuck are you doing? That wheelchair is for my mother!" Well, didn't know that it was hers. Her name wasn't on it or anything like that. I put the wheelchair back and found one that nobody fussed at me about (maybe because they were still all asleep). Well, I helped the lady to the bathroom and that's all she needed.

Next thing that happened was that Lucian (the Red Cross head guy from Connecticut) called me over to take a cot out. The person that was in it had, um soiled it. So a UH-Downtown cadet and I lifted the cot and took it outside, disassembled it, and trashed it. Wasn't too bad except it stunk, and I was trailing the smell. Bleyuch!!!

Well after that, Marthe returned. This time with a lost child in tow. She asked if I could carry this 6/7 year old girl so she could see if she could find her cot. You didn't see too many heads because they were under the covers (as I mentioned, it was frickin cold). Well, the kid was getting really heavy. I sat her down as a couple people searched to see if they could locate her mother. She started falling asleep in the chair and almost fell out of it. That scared her so I put her on my leg. She leaned on me and fell right asleep. OK, I'm not a hypochondriac or anything, but stuff went through my mind. What might this kid have after being stuck in the Superdome this whole time. Just as I was pondering that, she went into a fit of coughing. I was thinking, shit she has something. Maybe not. Maybe she just choked on her spit while sleeping. Well, it sounded like she wanted to puke and that's the last thing I wanted to happen. She didn't and a Red Cross person came by later to take her to a lost kids section.

So back to trolling the aisles. Nothing new there, picking up trash, getting blankets for some people, and thing of the sort. That's when I met volunteer nurse from Nacogdoches. She was surprised when I mentioned SFA. A guy I work with went to SFA and talks about Nacogdoches all the time. She told me that the guy who plays the lumberjack mascot was a totally flaming homosexual. I'll have to let the guy at work know that. His axe handle has purple streamers tied to the end of it.

Well, we chatted for a while. One of her patients walked by she let me know about him. Non-compliant schizophrenic (violent schizophrenic). I told her if he started something I would be going the other way quickly. She mentioned that dysentery had begun its course throughout the evacuees, but would probably would end soon because a lot of medicine had arrived.

We talked some more about things. She let me know what some ambulance personnel do if people get beligerent with them when trying to transport people to the hospital. Well, you know how the mobilize patients in the ambulance with tape, well, if you act up, they'll run the tape right over your eyebrows. The stuff used is stronger than duct tape. Ouch.

Well, it was getting light outside and I had been replaced by a group from ExxonMobil, you could see the sea of red shirts with logos. Yeah, that was around 6:00 AM (just in time for the morning news). Yeah, you won't find me on the news because all of the reporters were sleeping while I was working. ExxonMobil, show up and take all the glory...fuckers.

Someone handed me one of the people that slept in my section. He couldn't remember where his cot was. I didn't know so we walked the entire thing twice and finally found it. He really only wanted to find it so he could get a smoke. I told him where he could go smoke, but he insisted that I take him out so I could show him where his cot was. I propped his blankets up and made a teepee shape out of them so it would be easy to find. I took him outside and we talked for a bit. He was a bit difficult to understand (Louisiana accent and stroke victim). Well, after he had his smoke, I showed him back to his cot.

Well, I decided to get some Krispy Kreme donuts (fritters actually). Just as I finished my 3rd, an HISD truck showed up with lots of food items (more donouts, cereal, cinnamon rolls, danish pastries, and apples. They called for volunteers to unload the truck in the assembly line fashion (people a few feet apart and just hand the stuff down the line). We got done with that truck pretty quick. Another one came with the milk for the cereal.

That was it. It was about 8:15 AM now and I was tired. I hadn't slept since 4:30 AM on Saturday morning. So that's 16 hours total volunteered over a 28 hour period, with no sleep. Well, I did catch a nap while driving. I found myself in the middle of the intersection of Barker Cypress and Saums, and woke up. I was like, "Fuck...doo dee doo dee doo".

Now I've got 2 hours of sleep under my belt. Ana had to go to work and if you know my kids, they're not gonna let me sleep. Well, today wasn't the most fun. Lots of walking around. My feet hurt, the tendons behind my knee hurt, yeah, it does. I hope I don't get sick from helping all of those people out. In total I had to help 2 people to the bathroom. Oh yeah, this was the first time I operated a wheelchair. I don't drive those things very well. I nudged 3 cots with people sleeping in them (my bad).

Well, I'll have to see when I would be able to go back again. Walter (my brother in law) wants to go on Friday. That would be the first day I'm available again. We'll see.