[Jewelry making - Article 00418] - Re: [Orchid] Katrina the Killer

[Lisa Bialac-Jehle]

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Hi guys,

    Woof.....This will be a long one. Where do I start? Wednsday, I 
    went in to the downtown Red Cross office to do the volunteer work 
    they had requested of me. I was supposed to work a10 hour day as a 
    case worker, processing evacuees. Didn't work out that way. 

    I arrived late, as the one and one half hour commute to get  there
    was actually a two hour commute during rush hour. Not fun. Oh  well.
    First group I encountered was at the front of the building. Red
    Cross volunteers like myself. They mostly just looked at me as though
     I had just gotten off of the mother ship. Except for this one
    enormous man at the front with a shaved head, that was wearing a 
    badge  bearing the name, "Fridge". So he was. The two of us would
    have made a good circus act. I am 5'3", and 100 pound. He was easily 
    quadruple that..... eek. Our official greeter. "Fridge" was very 
    friendly. 

    Next, I went into the meeting room where the orientation meeting
    that I had just missed was wrapping up. What did I miss? Never found
    out. 

    As things unwound, I was assigned to " Karol", who was a Red Cross
    staff member that I mistook for a volunteer. Ooops. He reenacts
    mideaval battles and swordplay in his spare time.He spent a little
    time telling me about the kind of longbow that he uses. Oh...by the
    way, I am changing everyone's name in this narrative, to protect
    both the innocent and the inept. 

    I was following "Karol" around, about to begin processing, when 
    someone commented that "Tony", one of the supervisors needed help 
    with intake. In the end, that is where I spent my day. Intake. Not 
    what I came in for, but that's where they needed the most help. 

    I sat myself down at a table for 6. three of us on one side,  three
    clients on the other. "Tony" placed a form...that I had seen  once
    briefly in training in front of me...the big cartoon one with  the
    carbon paper, (figures that I would get that one),  and called  the
    first client. From there,  I was pretty much on my own. Lord help 
    them. 

    Luckily for everyone involved, the form was fairly self
    explanitory,(although apparently not to everyone. The lead case
    worker came in later that day, just to tell me that she loved me, as
    apparently, I was the only person in the last five days to fill out
    the form correctly. Ai yi yi!). Thank God. I took their ID, filled
    out what I could using the ID, and then asked a series of questions
    relating to their housing, needs and insurance. All of the clients
    were completely exhausted. Some of them had been turned out of a
    plane with the clothes on their back, without a penny in their
    pocket. Some had hitchhiked here. One of them with 4 kids. Most of
    them were scared. I didn't blame them. It shook me up too. They
    could easily be me. They could easily be you. 

    It took a while, but I got into a rhythm. I would introduce myself,
    ask them their name, and then I would welcome them to  California. I
    tried to talk to each person during the tedious job of filling out
    the form, so that they weren't just sitting there wondering what the
    hell I was doing with their lives. At the end of  our interview, I
    would shake their hand, smile and say jokingly, "Welcome to the
    system. You're in it". 

    One woman just looked at me and started to laugh herself sick when I
    said that. She wiped the tears from her eyes as she repeated it to
    the woman next to her, and that woman started to laugh too. That felt
    better. After, I would explain that this was the first step in
    processing their information so that we could get the proper help to
    them as soon as possible. Then I would send them into the next room
    to get something to eat and drink while they were waiting. The wait
    averaged around 20 minutes. 

    The room and the building were industrial. Industrial colors. Beige
    and green. Our small interview space led into a larger waiting area,
    that held uncomfortable seats and one scratchy TV. Hard walls, hard
    floors, ugly colors, warm hearts. 

    We had all kinds of satisfyingly nasty snacks available. Oreos,
    chips, crackers. Loads of other stuff too, although no one seemed to
    touch the graham crackers. I know I didn't. To drink, there were all 
    of the varied unnaturally colored Gatorades sitting in ice, and
    water. 

    I found it jarring watching a very quiet, old, rheumy eyed, grizzled
    man with skin as black as pitch, cradling a bottle of florescent
    green liquid. It made the gatorade look like some magic potion. Kind
    of like the bottles in Alice in Wonderland, that read: "drink me". I
    wish it was so. It will take magic to return their lives to them. 

    Later we had a big spread of KFC. Biscuits, corn, homey macaroni
    salads full of mayonnaise, and sandwiches. Everyone, staff  and
    clients ate, whether they felt like it or not. If only for a minute,
    it took our minds off of the turn this world had taken. 

    The staff and volunteers were interesting. There was no obvious chain
    of command in place, and as a result, several popped up to fill what
    they saw as a void. The woman doing intake next to me, came with an
    agenda. She would ask the clients benign personal questions about
    their needs, and then attempt to fill them herself. She told one
    client that she had a coat in the car that would fit her, and several
    others that her husband was a doctor, and could take care of them. 

    Her heart was in the right place, unfortunately, paperwork bored
    her. Her forms were a mess, and would no doubt later cause the
    clients and caseworkers unnecessary time in fixing them. She didn't
    last long though. After her fourth break in two hours, she
    disappeared. I am guessing that the kind of rescue work we were
    providing proved not to be as dramatic as she had hoped...lol. 

    The next guy was great though, "Ron". Efficient and quick. He  put
    the clients at ease. We did have one old man who showed up to  help
    and for some reason got placed at my table. Not only was he  deaf, he
    began to ask totally inappropriate questions and make  comments that
    were religious racial and sexual. I ran for "Tony".  "Tony" yanked
    the man, and sent him supervised, to sit watching  people sign in at
    the front. 

    A young man in a yellow shirt took charge throughout the day. he
    seemed very authoritative and knew what he was doing in correcting
    and directing us. Unfortunately, he wasn't and didn't. Had to fix
    everything he did in the end. Luckily, I had checked in with "Tony",
    before changing things. Too bad I was almost the only one. "Wanda"
    the woman who was supervising our room, had all of the correct info.
    Unfortunately because she appeared a bit timid, no one listened to
    her. Authority of the boldest ruled. 

    If the client didn't have any hard ID. Picture ID with a date, or
    Drivers License, we were not allowed to process them, due to some
    wise guys in the neighborhood who quickly caught on that a handout
    was to be had. This posed a huge problem in several cases, as
    clients forced to swim through the muck dead bodies and debris
    quickly lost all that they had on them. 

    In this case, we sent them next door, where for at least a  while, a
    young Red Cross wizard of twenty-something, large,  longhaired
    bespectacled and bearded, looking for all the world like  the
    stereotypical physics major, was able in most cases to pull up a 
    phone record or a gas bill or some other record on line. He was 
    amazing. Others followed in his wake, but he was the king and
    saviour  of the day. 

    Some still could not find ID, and in those cases, we sent them 5
    blocks away to the Social Security office to obtain emergency IDs. I
    hated to do that, and weaseled my way around it as much as I could
    when I was certain that the person I was talking to was who they
    said they were. I only had one that I turned away, and it turned out
    that indeed, all of the info that he had given me was bogus. He was
    in the  end, who he said he was. He just thought it would get him
    through  faster if he gave someone elses' info as he had lost his.
    Took him  all day to fix it, and no on believed a word he said after
    that 

    I just couldn't see sending someone totally cut from their moorings,
    turned out into a strange city, to fend for themselves, wait in more
    lines and be further alienated and exhausted. It seemed wrong. 

    In interviewing the stream of people that passed by me, I found
    several things: Most of them didn't want to go back to wherever they
    came from. They had had enough. The ones that did wish to return,
    were vehement about it. That was their home. The sooner they were
    able to return, the better. 

    Some of the clients stuck in my mind. "Appolonia", was one of  the
    patients trapped in the hospital at Tulane when the Hurricane hit.
    She was one of the ones that arrived with nothing. 49, still
    recovering from illness, delicate and shaken to her core. She was
    terrified. Who could blame her? The only thing familiar in where she
    had ended up was that she was still in America, and most of us spoke
    english. She stayed all day until she could be placed in housing. We
    took special care of her. 

    "Anita and John". An older creole couple possessed of great dignity
    and elegance. They had swum to a rooftop where they sat without food
    or water for three days more or less until they were plucked off. She
    was 74. He was 80. She was concerned because he needed his cancer
    treatments and his eye medicine. She needed medication too, but was
    reluctant to bring it up. He had the most beautiful voice. She called
    me her "angel". That broke my heart. I could do so little. 

    "Sally" was a big cheerful 30 ish woman who shepherded through  her
    mother, her sisters, her three cousins and their families. She was
    indefatigable, the rest of her family were basket cases. They all
    came from Sunflower, Mississippi. Sunflower...what a name for a
    city. It was all kindling now. "Sally" was relentless. In the end,
    although they were some of the first clients that went through, they
    were our last clients of the day. I and another worker tried to
    shovel them all through without obtaining the proper ID's necessary
    to confirm them. They had to swim to get out. None of them had any
    identifying  paperwork with them, the ones with the proper IDs, were
    able to identify the others though. We succeeded with some of them,
    and got chewed out like hell for the ones that they caught us on.
    More on that later. 

    Then there was "Deewain". He was a 28 year old that looked to be
    about 17. He had corn rows, a big baby face, and a mouth full of some
     very artistic gold teeth. He was just beaten down, and he was
    cracking under the strain. 

    I found in my interviews, that Houston was definitely not the  place
    to be when you needed help. Turns out, that in Houston, several  of
    our clients, including, "Deewain", had been robbed of the few
    possessions that they were able to salvage. Stories about that were
    rampant. Remind me to avoid Texas, (at least Houston), in the future.
    
    Can't vouch for my own city either. One young couple had someone 
    approach them to try and rob them on their way to the intake center.
    Despicable dregs of humanity, preying on the vulnerable. 

    All this poor guy wanted was a meal, a change of underwear, and
    someone professional to talk to...... He had been wearing the same
    clothes for a week, and washing them in sinks when he could. Because
    of his lack of ID, he was put through the ringer, despite our best
    efforts. The catch phrase of the day turned out to be, "rules are
    rules". I spent my time finding ways around that, while still
    adhering to the letter of the law. 

    I looked all over for our mental health guy, but couldn't find  him.
    I was told he had left for the day. I was worried. For the rest  of
    the day, I watched "Deewain",  like a hawk. I was afraid he would go
    off somewhere and kill himself. No, I am not exaggerating. In the
    end, I had no choice but to hand him off to someone else, who swore
    that she would look out for him. 

    There were others, The woman with 6 children taken in at a local 
    church. She had nothing, no one, and no where to go. Her hair was 
    perfect. She had beautiful eyes. We were able to place her and give 
    her a debit card to use, as we were with just about everyone. 

    The one lone white man. Tall, blond and rail thin with  pockmarked
    skin and a bad look to his eyes. He had his two little  boys with
    him, that he wouldn't let out of his sight. Several  caseworkers
    offered to take the kids up to the supervised play room,  so that
    they weren't in the middle of the mess of people downstairs,  but he
    insisted they would never leave him. 

    When I sat down and spoke to the boys, they readily agreed to go with
    me, however, it turned out to be dad who didn't want to be left
    alone. He refused to let them go. Although it was offered, he
    wouldn't accept any help for the kids, or enrollment in any programs
    for them. He was a very angry guy. No mom in sight. I suspected
    something else was going on, but nothing I could do in the capacity
    I was in, and the crush of people that waited. That one still worries
    me, although it was obvious that his sons adored him. 

    On the whole though the stories were good. We were able to get
    almost everyone through the process fairly seamlessly. The Red Cross
    was able to provide them with shelter, money, and food, and direct
    them to various agencies for clothing and other help. Every client I
    processed was patient, kind and helpful. Amazing with what they had
    all been through. 

    As I mentioned earlier, we got in trouble about the ID thing.  The
    head of our unit, the "buck stops here" person,  is a tall dour
    woman with the name o a goddess, but who looks for all the world like
     the female version of Barney Fife,(a skinny, prune-ish, funny
    looking  actor from an old American TV series). She was also
    unfortunately....  blessed with the bedside manner of the Wicked
    Witch of the West, (non  US readers...see movie, Wizard of OZ for
    reference). 

    Although I must say she was extremely precise and efficient.  Very
    directed, intelligent and in charge.  She was seriously cranky  by
    nature. In this case, furious that some had been let through without
    hard ID. In one instance, a caseworker had relied on a call to a mom
    in Biloxi to identify her 35 year old son in Los Angeles. Luckily,
    it turned out that he was who he said he was after further
    processing. Of course "Barney",  was no where to be found when all of
     us were looking for approval or to ask questions. Then again, she
    had  made herself so unapproachable, that I don't know if most would
    have  dared. 

    Apparently she had wanted large signs posted throughout the building,
    stating that no one would be processed without ID,  but was overruled
    on the grounds that the media might see it. She ordered that they
    would be placed prominently the next day. Media or not. She also
    intended to discontinue the computer help that were were so relieved
    to be giving. Instead, she planned to send everyone lacking ID
    packing off on the trek to the Social Security office down the road.
    We were horrified, but there is nothing that we can do about it. 

    Luckily, not all of the supervisors are like her. I know that  she
    is in a tough position, and I do understand, that should we give 
    our resources to those who don't need it, then those who do will 
    lack, but just a little empathy from her would have gone a long way. 

    We processed 100 + families that day. Apparently a record. One  that
    will no doubt be broken in the days to come. There are thousands
    more to go in the next weeks and months. Not sure where we are going
     to put them all. They need jobs, housing, money, clothing,
    counseling, understanding, continuity and so much more. It will take
    a long time. I hope we are all up to the task. 

    Sorry this one was so long. there is so much to say, and so much
    left unsaid. I still don't know if I am to be deployed. I went over
    to the main building on Wednesday, and hunted down the head of the
    department, by wearing my "volunteer" badge and looking like I knew
    where I was going. Her name...ah shoot...I started to give her name,
    but I don't want any grief for her....sigh.... Anyway, she's just
    great, possessed of all of the empathy, intelligence and kindness,
    that one could hope for. She says she will call me today. I trust
    that she will.

Take care,

Lisa, (weather is cooling off here in Southern California. hate it  
when that happens...) Topanga, CA USA

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