Monday morning I drove out to the Center and plunged head first into the job. I learned after my arrival that the Mississippi Conference Disaster Response Center was located in a former church, built in the '70's and fairly up to date.  Before Katrina it had been used for the United Methodist District Office and its programming.  There were unused rooms and after Katrina tore through Mississippi, it was the perfect place for the newly formed Center. The UM District Superintendent decided immediately following Katrina and the creation of the Disaster Response Center that it needed camper facilities for the contingent of volunteers at the Center. There was no space for out of town volunteers at local camping areas so the District constructed a five unit campground for trailers; which included water, sewer, electricity, plus showers, laundry and cooking facilities. A generous family donated the use of a 8' X 24' trailer for volunteers. This trailer is what I lived in for the two weeks. I was really glad because it was the size of a FEMA trailer and gave me the chilling reality of what it is like in a FEMA trailer. I do mean chilling. Twice I ran out of propane in the middle of the night. No gas, no furnace, no heat equates to cold. I also learned that one should keep the water heater turned off until 30 minutes before doing the dishes, and taking a shower. The rest of the time you live on cold water. Although better than a tent it is still below what most Americans would consider a normal housing situation.

The main office for intake was the former church children's nursery and I was often amused by the pictures of Sponge Bob and Lobster Larry racing across the wall. The two main components of the office were the computers and phone system. Through these the volunteers and I connected those in need with individuals and organizations willing to give of their time and money.

There were several other offices in the building, of which the main one was for the Director of the Disaster Response Center. This Director, Chris, was the only paid employee and as part of his job had the weight and responsibility of keeping a large group of volunteers informed and trained to handle the diverse calls the Center received.

I came to quickly realize that Katrina had not just affected the people on the Coast. Mississippi unlike Michigan's farms of corn, grow trees as a crop. Most of Mississippi is covered with trees (particularly the further south you go). Where Michigan would have a corn, wheat, or soy bean field, Mississippi has trees growing on a Plantation. When Katrina passed through Mississippi it came with a fury of 130 mile an hour winds. Wind and trees don't mix ……. trees are the losers.  When a tree loses, the odds are high that someone's home, car, business is going to be on the underside of that tree. Thousands and thousands of trees came down. The destruction was not only people's possessions, but the tree crop was damaged. A huge financial lose occurred when trees that take 60 years to grow were twisted and broken as to make them suitable only as wood pulp. After  Katrina the lumber producers tried to store storm damaged trees for later use by spraying them with water. There were so many fallen trees most were left where they fell. Harvesting them would flood the market with trees resulting in a crash in lumber prices for the plantation owners. The hot climate of the South encourages termites, fungus, bugs to destroy fallen lumber so harvest must be timely and in reality most of the fallen timber is now useless.
 
Throughout Mississippi everyone suffered some type of loss. It might have been crop damage, a broken house, unemployment, water damage, or perhaps a spoiled freezer full of food. The news media focused largely on the Gulf Coast and then most of the coverage was on New Orleans. The only mention I remember hearing about the rest of the state came just after Katrina, when there was difficulty clearing the roads of the fallen trees. Destruction was everywhere. Imagine if whatever state you lived in suffered a power outage throughout the state with serious home damage and roads everywhere blocked and impassable by fallen trees. I was beginning to gain an understanding of the magnitude and extent of the destruction.

This, I now believe, is one of the problems we have as people, trying to grasp destruction, so large, so massive, so all encompassing, it is almost beyond our comprehension. I wanted to demonstrate this in this writing and after some searching on the internet I found the two pictures below best demonstrate the extent of the damage. Both pictures are satellite photos of the Coastal States. You can see a number of states including Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky in the photo. The pictures were taken to show the degree to which lighting at night illuminates the sunless sky. Spots of yellow are city lights. The bluish haze represents rural lighting. Black represents no lights. . The photos are laid out as thumbnails to fit the webpage. If you want to see the full size pictures click on them. The picture on the left is the night sky in 2003, well before Katrina. The picture on the right is the photo taken the day after Katrina passed through the South. If you carefully examine both pictures you will see the stark difference between them. The large city lights are dimmed or gone and the rural regions are darkened. Compare the Coastal Region including New Orleans. The effect of these two pictures in comparison is stunning.

Wow ….. this hurricane delivered a blow that was off the scale of human comprehension. It was beyond anything I could visualize from my safe haven in Michigan. Every day I volunteered in the office my brain slowly came to the realization of what had truly happened. By the middle of the first week I had realized how severely the state had been affected. I had not yet come to understand the level of destruction that had hit the Coast. What that would mean on a personal level ……. would come later. It is critical, to an understanding of this crisis, to keep in the forefront of our thoughts that the loss reached beyond a crushed home, car, or the inconvenience of no electricity. The loss extends to all the common things we take for granted. Even if one's car was drivable, trees blocked roads, food spoiled or was made inedible. Toilet paper was soggy, washing machine motors were soaked, clocks, computers, microwaves, radios, TVs, K-Marts, Radio Shack, grocery stores and gas stations all useless. So how did this affect the citizens of Mississippi? They had to wait. Wait until those with saws cleared tree covered roads. Wait until linemen could replace the wire broken by storm winds. Wait until missing roofs were covered with tarps. Wait until water soaked possessions were put by the curb and removed. Wait unemployed, until employers were back in operation. Wait until the simple things in life were restored. The task of recovery was not easy. One Meridian church served over 300,000 meals in the post disaster recovery. In Meridian where I volunteered, life had partially returned to normal. Services were restored by the time I arrived to help. By no means am I trying to say all was OK in Meridian in December. The evidence of the hurricane was everywhere. The houses of families without insurance still had trees lying across their broken structures. Many people I spoke with living in the area were still waiting for insurance money. Fortunately most stores were open and supplies were readily available.

Now, let me discuss my volunteer job.

The purpose of the Disaster Response Center is two fold. The first is to acquire the materials needed for the recovery and to deliver these supplies to those in need. The second, is to match teams of volunteers, looking to help with the recovery, to a location on the Gulf Coast where their skills can be utilized.  These two objectives changed over time. Immediately following the hurricane, the effort related to the immediate survival of victims. Supplies and volunteers went to the Coast to provide immediate aid. This changed as the clean-up effort kicked in. Supplies like clean-up buckets, chain saws, blue roofs, and basic necessities were needed, as well as volunteers to muck out structures. Finally, during my time in December the effort started to move towards reconstruction. During this phase supplies and help are needed to rebuild damaged structures. Three warehouses will be constructed to hold building materials and volunteers will be assigned so as to maximize the efforts of the skilled and unskilled volunteers in the rebuilding of homes.

 
On the receiving end, a communities needs are determined through the coordination of the community churches in the Coastal region. Methodist churches are plentiful on the Coast and the pastors and members of these local churches generally know the needs of the people in their community. This has worked well, although it is a daunting task left to pastors untrained in this type of management, and without the necessary materials, or in possession of a functioning church building. I don't know how the pastors and their staff do it as well as they do, but they deserve a huge amount of credit for making the recovery happen.

The giving end of this tree consists of people who have received a call to help. Any and all types of volunteers call the Center wanting to volunteer their time. These may consist of individuals or groups as large as 70 people. The group may volunteer a day or a month, although a week is average. The volunteers may come from some part of Mississippi to as far away as California, Washington or Canada. Teams of men and women come to help, of all ages, and all walks of life.

I learned very quickly everything was based on volunteers. UMCOR is a volunteer organization. There are very few paid staff, all overworked. For them the basic and most essential necessities were at the top of their work list. Most of these needs are completed through the work of their volunteers. Much of my paradigm comes from the dozens of conversations I had with people. These conversations consisted of several types of phone calls. The first were individuals who were in need of help. Usually they were looking for some help with their physical situation, but I found that on many occasions they merely wanted someone who would listen to their situation and offer some encouragement. I remember one woman in particular who called the Center several times. She had neighbors and knew of families living in Central Mississippi who had lost everything and were struggling to regain some dignity and purpose. She wanted and even demanded help for these people. She was willing to organize the community she lived in, but needed a link to the aid. The problem was she was not from the Coastal region. The main thrust of all the aid is to those LIVING on the Coast. The Aid Agencies were counting on local communities and counties to aid those who suffered damages in Katrina or had moved to their area from the Coast. It was frustrating. Here was an obvious need and someone willing to donate time, yet there was no help available. No help because all the agencies in her area were tapped out on resources.

I did have people call wanting something to give their kids for Christmas, only a couple weeks away. For these parents I could offer a little help as several agencies were trying to acquire presents to give the kids. For the most part there was more need than available resources.

The next group of callers worked for the aid agencies, served as church liasons, or acted as Coastal pastors and their staff . They called to let us know about programs that were being put into place or to ask for specific requests regarding materials, or to give us updates on their situation. For example, one day I had a woman from an agency let us know that the FEMA trailers had no supplies in them. There was a stove, but no dishes, forks, pots, pans, etc. There was a bathroom, but no toilet
paper, towels, shower curtain. There were beds, but no sheets, or pillows. What could we do to provide these basics …… answer …. nothing for now .. but, we were glad to know and added her knowledge to the needs list. Some of these needs were met by other organizations. I remember hearing about one church that packed up a semi-trailer with basic necessities like toilet paper and had the youth group pass them out at one of the FEMA parks.

One of the most important calls we would get were people wanting to volunteer their time. Most of the calls in this group were from team leaders representing a church or other organization, putting together a VIM trip. These leaders shared one thing in common, the desire to help. Beyond that there was no way to predict anything about the group. Some leaders were novices and had no idea what they were heading into, while others had been putting together teams for years and knew only to well how desperate the need for help was on the Coast. Some leaders were bringing teams of just a few while others were bringing 50 or more. Each team whether consisting of one person like myself or 70, was unique. This meant they have a unique set of skills to offer and a set of needs. For example, some groups had vehicles to drive to their site and others were coming in by airplane. Teams driving to their site could bring tools and supplies, while teams far away brought only themselves. The list goes on and on. A job of the volunteers at the Center was to fill out a form in an attempt to decipher the team's needs and skills. This helped answer as many questions as possible.

Then there were those who wanted to give something to the people hurt by Katrina. Most of these calls were altruistic, but once in awhile someone would call wanting to dump their merchandise. I remember one person interested in donating a piano that they wanted to get rid of, they wanted us to provide shipping from a long way off. People called with donations of clothes, food, furniture …. you name it. The general policy was that if the individual was willing to pay for and make the arrangements to ship the merchandise we would take it. However, clothes were the exception to this rule. We never took clothes. The Coast was swamped with clothes. There was no place to put them, and no way to distribute them. Food needed to be non-perishable, packed in boxes, put on a pallet, and wrapped for truck delivery. This was discouraging to the small church that wanted to donate a few bags of food, but there was not enough help at the warehouses to repackage food onto pallets or pick up a car full of groceries a hundred miles away.

Two points: First this was all going on in mid-December ….. over 3 months after Katrina. Second the reason it sounds confusing is that there were so many organizations that stepped forward to help, it was an impossible task to manage or coordinate the logistics of supply distribution. Everyone was scrambling just to keep people alive.

One of the problems with all that was going on had to do with connections. Many people outside the disaster zone had friends and relatives living on the Coast. They wanted to help those they knew. This makes sense. We would all act the same way if we were in their shoes. The problem with this method of helping is distribution of volunteer resources. If a particular region has lots of help coming from the North through its connections, it would outstrip the recovery efforts of another region. Volunteers at the Disaster Response Center tried to balance off these disparities, but it was difficult. The challenge was raised to even higher levels by churches scheduling in teams without letting the Center know the details of their help. Again it made perfect sense, because there was always the very human fear that the Center would try and move a particular churches recovery teams to some other area. I don't know how anyone at the Coastal recovery sites (churches) has the strength to reconcile the complex organizational details of recovery with the heart wrenching loss of the community.

It wasn't as physically grueling, volunteering at the Disaster Response Center in Meridian Mississippi, as it was on the Coast, but the mental strain was enormous. I would return to my dark and empty trailer every night to ponder and reflect on all that I had heard that day.

VOLUNTEERS! This word must not be forgotten in the mass of information.  Volunteers are the key to the recovery from this disaster. What wonderful volunteers the Disaster Response Center has working for it.  I was treated from the very moment I arrived with the deepest respect and welcomed into the community. These regular volunteers worked week after week for many months trying to bring together the strings of recovery. They smiled when I did stupid stuff, helped me when I was in need, and blessed those around them with their unselfish caring. These are some of some of the volunteers.

Thank you all.