Wednesday, September 7, 2005

The temporary Red Cross headquarters in Montgomery is housed in an out-of-business K-Mart building. It's mostly empty, but some grimy and cobwebby fixtures remain. There are extra-dirty rectangles along the floor that denote where shelves of stuff once stood. Signs on the wall still direct people to the former locations of the electronics, fresh meat and layaway departments. But it's anything but deserted. Someone went in there and strung all kinds of extension cords, cables, and wires across the floor, up the pillars, in through the acoustic tiles in the ceiling and created a command center with computers, copy machines, telephone banks, an orientation area, a canteen, a supply area, a registration area, etc.

There was also an area set up for registered and oriented volunteers to wait to be sent out. Michael and I spent a lot of time there. It was a bit of a letdown, but I don't want to criticize. There was such a hum of desire to help in that room, and I have no idea what it takes to put together a disaster relief operation of this magnitude. Still, I was frustrated when we were told to go home in the afternoon and come back tomorrow. Then again, I was partly glad, since I was exhausted from getting up at 3 am and vomiting all the way to Montgomery.

Another volunteer gave us her hotel room key and told us she would share with someone else who had two queen beds in her room. We were amazed. The next morning we all gathered in front of the Holiday Inn trying to arrange transportation back to headquarters. The shuttle drivers were doing their best, but there were a lot of volunteers to be shuttled. Two women, complaining all the while about how Red Cross volunteers were only out for themselves and would never help each other, had called a cab. They told Michael and me that we could share with them, which we agreed to do even though we didn't like them much. (We could hardly agree about Red Cross volunteers not helping each other when one of them had so freely given us the room we had slept in all night.) When the cab did not immediately arrive, they accepted a ride with another woman literally without a backward glance at us. Good riddance.

Everyone else we met was wonderful, and the group of eight we had joined, including the people who had doubled up so Michael and I could have a room, was put together with another twenty people and assigned to Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Tidbit that doesn't quite fit with the narrative: We paid for dinner in Montgomery with Michael's Red Cross Disaster Staff Card. When our waitress gave us the receipt she said, "Thank you, Mr. Cross." Michael insists she was joking, but I'm not so sure.

 

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Red Cross Headquarters, Old K-Mart Building, Montgomery

On our way: Sheila, Keith, Christine, Stephanie, Bev, Robbie, L'il Steph, Megan, Michael

In the van to Pascagoula.

Good light. Gautier, MS.