Hurricane Katrina - 2005

When Katrina was approaching the Gulf coast the Red Cross had propositioned people in Montgomery, AL. & Baton Rouge, LA. I flew in to Montgomery on Sunday Aug. 28th. There were about ten of us who came on the same plane. We were told to pickup enough rent rental cars to bring us all to headquarters. After processing in I reported in to Transportation (part of Logistics) where we assign rental cars to people in the different functions that were going out take care of the people who were affected by the storm. After working a half of a day Monday (Katrina was making land fall that night) we were told to pickup a couple of heater meals and water from supply, and go back to our motels and ride out the storm. Although the Gulf coast wasn’t as lucky, in Montgomery all we got was rain and wind gusts when Katrina arrived. In the three weeks that I worked in transportation we assigned 815 car, vans, and trucks to disaster workers.

After spending a month at home I put in to go back to the Gulf in the Communications function. I was assigned to Baton Rouge. When we were flying into Baton Rouge we were diverted to New Orleans because of fog and we were low on fuel. We refueled, and headed to Baton Rouge. The function is actually called RTT (Repair Technology Team), which included computers, communications, networking, & supply. Communications includes phones, cell phones, radios, & satellites. At headquarters they were always changing things around, and we were always moving computers and phones. We also checked on equipment at shelters, and communications satellites a round the state of Louisiana.

2004 Hurricane Season

Hurricane season 2004 was a busy one. Alex, Charley, Francis, Gaston, Ivan, & Jeanne all hit the United States, and I didn’t get a chance to work any one of them. Plans had been made for the fall 2004. A back packing trip to Yosemite National Park, CA., and a wedding in Ecuador and I could not fit three weeks between them. So I spent most of September and October at the local chapter assisting DSHR volunteers get out to their Hurricane job assignments. Since I could not go, it gave the Director of Emergency Services a chance to work a national disaster.

Hurricane Isabel

Hurricane Isabel hit Eastern North Carolina Sept. 18, 2003. The disaster Headquarters was in Greenville, NC which is only 3hrs. away from High Point. Those from NC. who went to the disaster went by rental cars. (It is Red Cross policy that you can not use a personal vehicles while working disasters). From Greenville I was assigned to a kitchen at a Baptist church in New Bern, NC. I was logistics at the kitchen which meant I was responsible for the care of the part of the church we were using, and the two trailers that we were using for food storage. One of the trailers was refrigerated It was up to us to keep a daily inventory of all the food supplies on hand and meals that we prepared that day. One of the Red Cross partner organizations is the Baptist Men who run mobile kitchens. The group we had on this assignment were from Tennessee. The kitchen closed after two weeks, and I went back to Greenville were I did courier trips, driving all over Northeast North Carolina until the job closed down

S.W. Virginia Floods - 2003

Remember that Red Cross deal about being ready to go in 24 hrs. Well one morning in late February I get this call about 8:45am. from the Winston Salem chapter asking if I could help them drive the ERV to S.W. Virginia, and could I leave by 10:00am. It seems one of their drivers got sick and the ERV had to be in Virginia by that afternoon. I told them if they brought the ERV to High Point I could leave by 12:00. We met at noon and we were off to our destination the armory at Big Rock, VA. (that’s the name of the town). We got there at the appointed time. We meet the shelter team and set up for the clients to show-up. The reason we were there was because there was flooding in the area. The people in that vicinity were used to flooding, and they just go to the homes of family or friends to stay. In two days the only people we saw at the shelter were a couple of people who stopped by to see what we were doing there, and pick up some snacks. On the third day we were told to report to Roanoke, VA. where there was some flooding. There we loaded our ERV with clean–up kits which contain two boxes. One has a mop, broom, squeegee . The other kit has a bucket, bleach, & cleaner. We went to an apartment complex that was flooded and gave them out. We did that for two days then we came home.

West Virginia Floods
In May I went to Charleston, WV. to work in logistics. I did the supplies for the disaster headquarters. Which meant learning how to find my way around Charleston to find stuff that we needed to keep the operation going. Later on they needed a courier to go to Parkersburg, WV., a 2 hr ride one way to deliver financial reports. It was one way to see West Virginia.

Volunteering All Through The Year.

When Mike is not busy answering DAT calls and going on national disasters, he is helping out in other ways.

Presentations to school groups about Red Cross Services.

Mike installs the new audio visual equipment at the chapter.

Local groups collect supplies for our servicemen and woman. Mike help packs for their trip overseas.

Unexpected Ice Storm

What a surprise we to had on Dec 5 of 2002 in High Point. When an Ice Storm covered most of North Carolina. A majority of the city and the surrounding area lost electric service due to ice and trees on power lines. We opened three shelters one each in High Point, Thomasville, and Jamestown. The shelters were open for a week housing 191 people between the three shelters. Since we are a small chapter the hard part was finding volunteers that could work a 12 hr. shift, but everybody came through and we made it by the time the last person left the shelters.

The chapter has backup generator so that was our headquarters, which was a lot warmer than our homes which were like ice boxes. I was doing logistics by driving the chapter van to the different shelters supplying them with food and supplies. The strange part was driving at night in a city you had lived in for over thirty years and had no any idea where you were, because it was totally dark with most of the street and traffic lights were out.

We had gotten a call from the EOC at 1:30am. that an elderly lady was at her house with no power, but had a kerosene stove for warmth. She had called because her flashlight had died and she needed batteries. Could we bring her some because her dogs were there and she was not leaving them. So I went to her house with a couple sets of D cells, but she had a 6v. lantern. I gave her my flashlight and the batteries with the promise that I would bring back her flashlight with the proper batteries the next day.

2002 -Back to New York and Arizona Wild Fires

In late February 2002 I went back to New York to help close down a major part of the 9-11 operation. Though it would several years before the national operation would completely close down. We spent most our time picking up equipment, and cleaning out buildings that we were no longer using. On the way home I was standing in this long line at La Guardia Airport when one of the SAS people saw the Red Cross baggage tag on my bags, and pulled me out of line. I thought I had done something wrong. He was just helping me get close to the front of the line, and get to my plane on time.

In late June I went to Arizona for what the Red Cross call the NE Arizona fires. It was officially called the Rodeo/Chediski fires. Our headquarters was in a town call Snowflake. I was doing Logistic (facilities) again. One of the problems we had was that we got there after they evacuated a couple of towns because of the fires, and we had to get shelter agreements signed after they had been opened for two weeks, the shelters were in towns that were anywhere 35 to 50 miles away from headquarters. We had to move the headquarters, because of the annual the 4th of July Rodeo. So we moved 2 miles down the road to a warehouse where we stayed for a week and a half. I was asked to help close the operation with assistant logistics officer.