Journal #4(11/04 - 11/07)
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This Page: Moving Day | Mississippi
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We all went to work early (8:00 a.m.) today to help with moving and make sure we got a chance to say goodby to the residents. Naturally, things did not go exactly as planned, but everyone was gone in the end.
Most residents were done packing when we arrived. Christine gathered everyone into the shelter to make an announcement and then waited far too long to do so. Keeping information from people is just not an effective management tool. Anyway, the announcement about procedure was finally made and most people promptly ignored the instructions. 
(Stuff going by truck, people going by bus. Move stuff to side door, load on truck, put self on bus loading at front door. 
Get on bus only if stuff loaded on truck.) Seemed to work reasonably well on the first run. Stuff on truck, people on bus. Then waiting for the truck/bus to return, people moved their boxes out by the front door so they all had to be moved back to the side door for loading on the truck, that took a long time to come back. 
Apparently the truck workers were parked waiting for residents to unload their stuff and for some reason they did not all appear to do that. Don't know what was going on at the trailer park site.
Location. The new trailers were located at Airport #3, whatever that is, not at the existing Renaissance Park. The new site was described as north of the Baton Rouge airport in an abandoned housing development. That is not too far from the Baker shelter, so again there will be some transportation issues. Hopefully they will begin to run a shuttle bus just as they are doing from the other trailer park.
It was great to see so many of the residents moving to more private dwellings. Most had collected a bit of stuff while in shelters and had quite a bit more to move than they had come in with: clothing and bedding mostly. With permission, I took some farewell photos:
After the busses were gone, we cleaned paperwork out of the office, donated some stuff to the local ARC chapter and the Miracle Place shelter, and worked with the tear-down crew from headquarters. At the end, all that was left was the stuff belonging to two residents who were in a hospital. Christine said if I would deliver the stuff I could have a car on Saturday. Since I wanted to go to Mississippi and needed a vehicle, I agreed. (I would have anyway.)
The first trip was to the Southern University shelter where one of our nurses had been transferred. She knew where the resident was hospitalized so I was to take his stuff to her for delivery later. The shelter was quite different from our casual Baker site. A much more visible security presence with metal detectors and a real curfew, separate facilities for medical staff, and just a lot more room. Teneitra and I dropped the boxes off and then returned to Our Lady of Mercy where I actually got a real dinner and dropped Teneitra as she had evening plans. Then it was off to another hospital with more stuff, this time on the outskirts of Baton Rouge (but fortunately not too far from OLOM.) I also had a box of medical waste that I had been directed to drop at the hospital (assuming they would take it.) Although I was somewhat apprehensive about this mission, all went well, and I arrived back at OLOM around 9:00 p.m. Although it was still early, I was completely wasted and went right to bed. What an experience, going to be before lights-out.
I am very glad that I stayed around for the closing of the shelter. Although I do not think the trailer park is the best long term solution for the clients, it is a much better choice than continued residence in an shelter. I am discouraged about the long-term options for the displaced people of New Orleans in particular. There is so much political pressure to reopen the city that I am afraid people will be allowed to return to unsafe conditions, in their homes and with the levees. I suspect that the levees will be repaired with chewing gum and baling wire and the next big storm will take them out, along with a lot of people. Those we don't lose in the next storm will then get sick from the toxins remaining in their homes and neighborhood.
But maybe I am just tired and will cheer up later.
Saturday morning I got up early and headed out to the Mississippi coast. I had hoped to go with the shifties but we just did not have time so I made the trip by myself on my last day in the south. Here is a map of my route to Bay St. Louis.
As you can see, I stayed north of Lake Pontchartrain and crossed into Mississippi just past Slidell.
I got off the freeway and headed to the coast. These first two pictures are of the approach to Bay St. Louis, and are pretty representative of the situation along this highway. In Bay St. Louis, I discovered something that I already knew on some level: 
the I-90 bridge across the bay to Pass Christian is closed. 
I turned east onto a smaller road that ran right along the coast (the photo on the right is looking back at the bridge) and took the following photos on that stretch of beach. It looks like the water just rose up and ate the community, debris is still in trees and houses are obliterated.
I eventually had to turn around and head back the way I came as the roads were closed. I made my way around the bay on back roads and eventually found myself in Pass Christian.
I tried to get all the way to highway 90 (on the beach) but it was closed in various places. I made it there a couple of times but had to turn inland eventually around Long Beach/Gulfport.
Everywhere you see such devastation that it is hard to absorb. I remember seeing the reports from Waveland and Pass Christian on television but somehow it is more immediate and real when you see it in person. It is clear that the video did not exaggerate the damage.
For long stretches along the road through Long Beach to Gulfport, access to the coastal area was completely blocked, with concertina wire barriers and national guard troops or police posted at the access roads.
After Gulfport I couldn't get to Biloxi the back way to I went back to the freeway, headed east for a few miles, and turned south again at the Biloxi exit. Biloxi was pretty much closed to the public. I sign on the southbound highway said that the area was closed to all but disaster and recovery workers, but I had my Red Cross badge so ploughed ahead anyway.
There were barriers up before I reached the beach so I was diverted into the city of Biloxi. There was almost no traffic and many streets were barricaded. There was a lot of work going on, which was encouraging, but to see so little commercial activity after two months was sobering. All those home, and businesses and jobs are in limbo. How will people survive?
It was somehow more distressing to see the damage in a bigger city as I had somehow expected that the work would be proceeding more quickly in a metropolitan area that did not suffer the horrible flooding experienced by New Orleans. I was glad to return to Louisiana after my Mississippi tour. When will this region ever recover?
Outprocessing (Saturday, November 5, 2005)
I had to get back to Baton Rouge by 3:00 p.m. so I could check out at headquarters (or, in Red Cross jargon, outprocess.) This involves reviewing debit card expenditures, a brief check at the sheltering table, a form at Health Services, an interview with Mental Health, cell phone and auto check in (even if you had neither), and a final stop at staffing to turn in my work evaluation. This process can take hours when headquarters is busy, but went pretty quickly as things are winding down.
I had a good interview with mental health as Dorothy, who had worked at Baker, was on duty and I was pleased to talk with her. I was reassured as she confirmed some of my impressions about the situation at Baker.
The only minor glitch was at the vehicle registration table. You may remember back at the beginning of this journey, vans were checked out to some of the group that got sent to Baker, and all those people were put on the day shift, leaving the swing shift with no tranportation. Christine's solution to this problem was to register all the vehicles in her name and then distribute them as needed. This worked out for us, of course, and I think was a much better approach. However, this left her with lots of vehicles in her name that had to be checked back in. It turned out that she was going to be leaving for Lake Charles on Saturday so that would have left all of the Baker staff without transport again.
Since she was not actually scheduled to outprocess until Monday, she left the cars with whomever had the keys at the time with the understanding that they would check them in before the end of the day on Saturday. I had a Tahoe for my Friday night deliveries and assumed I would take that to Mississippi on Saturday. However, Jamie thought I should leave the larger Tahoe for group transport and I exchanged it for a van for my solo trip.
I filled up the van and cleaned it out and was all set to turn over the keys after I got my stamp at the vehicles table, since I did not officially have a car checked out in my name. I thought I would get the clearance first and then admit that I was in possession of a car registered to someone else. However, my plan was foiled when it turned out that I did have a vehicle in my name after all. Apparently, Christine put the Tahoe in my name on Friday assuming I would be using it on Saturday. Fortunately, the vehicle registration staff were aware of the situation with the Baker cars and there was no problem since Jamie had already turned over the Tahoe keys. (I had run into him during outprocessing and we went to vehicle registration together.)
They were in the process of returning all of the Enterprise rentals and consolidating their holdings with Avis, so had cars to return to the airport. Jamie volunteered to return one Sunday, so we had easy transport to the airport. He was leaving at 10:00 and I was flying out at 11:00 so it seemed to work out just fine. The only problem was I had not looked at my schedule in a while, and when I did I discovered that I was not leaving until 1:30. I went ahead and drove in with Jamie anyway as I had a book to read and would enjoy the peace of being alone for a while.
Travel arrangements worked out fine and I enjoyed my time at the airport, although I probably could have chosen a better book than one that dealt with the crash of TWA flight 800. I read until boarding and had a short flight to Houston. Then I was met by the Beesons and we had a good meal and conversation during the three-hour layover. I arrived in Portland at 8:30 p.m. and my adventure was over. The one thing I did not anticipate was that I would spend most of the next week sleeping. I had no idea I was so tired.
Anyway, it is all over now and I am trying to catch up with my real life. It is a struggle, especially with all the time I have been spending asleep, but I am making progress.
I may add to this journal when I have some distance and have gathered my thoughts into some coherent observations and conclusions. Maybe not. We will see.
Love to the Shifties and the clients and the people of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Victoria
