recent guests
A whole new phenomenon has cropped up: evacuee envy. At 2:30 am on September 5, two busses role into the Scout camp I work with and drop off 85 evacuees. We’ve got an eighty-bed training facility with motel style lodging and dining/kitchen facilities to feed 250. We had advanced notice of this so we mobilized about 30 folks to assist. We bought a mountain of toiletry items. We stocked the kitchen for a week's worth of meals. We cleaned the place so our guests would be as comfortable as possible. Many took vacation leave so they could help. All did so willingly and were cheerful during the process.
Upon their arrival we got names and addresses for all of them. We also got lists of loved ones they had been separated from. We did a cursory medical check to see if there were any problems that needed to be addresses immediately. They got showers and into some clothes we’d scrounged for them: lots of Boy Scout event t-shirts. We fed them a big meal. For some, it was the first real food they had had in a week. We put them to bed.
The next day it was decided to transport them about 20 miles to the south to a local hospital to get a real medical screening and medications for those who needed them. We had one bus at our disposal so we loaded up the first group and sent them on their way. We told them they would receive treatment and come back so we could get the second batch on their way for their screenings.
When the bus got back it was escorted by a sheriff’s deputies who told us the county sheriff wanted all the evacuees at camp to be housed in his town. Men with guns were hijacking our evacuees. Who were we to argue? So we loaded our remaining guests on the bus and followed them to town with the meager belongings of the first busload and the remainder of the mountain of toiletry items and groceries. One of the folks at the new shelter joked that this was the first batch of evacuees that showed up clean, fed, with paperwork, and with mountain of toiletry items and groceries.
I guess the county sheriff needed the FEMA reimbursement check worse than we did. We’re glad to have helped.
Upon their arrival we got names and addresses for all of them. We also got lists of loved ones they had been separated from. We did a cursory medical check to see if there were any problems that needed to be addresses immediately. They got showers and into some clothes we’d scrounged for them: lots of Boy Scout event t-shirts. We fed them a big meal. For some, it was the first real food they had had in a week. We put them to bed.
The next day it was decided to transport them about 20 miles to the south to a local hospital to get a real medical screening and medications for those who needed them. We had one bus at our disposal so we loaded up the first group and sent them on their way. We told them they would receive treatment and come back so we could get the second batch on their way for their screenings.
When the bus got back it was escorted by a sheriff’s deputies who told us the county sheriff wanted all the evacuees at camp to be housed in his town. Men with guns were hijacking our evacuees. Who were we to argue? So we loaded our remaining guests on the bus and followed them to town with the meager belongings of the first busload and the remainder of the mountain of toiletry items and groceries. One of the folks at the new shelter joked that this was the first batch of evacuees that showed up clean, fed, with paperwork, and with mountain of toiletry items and groceries.
I guess the county sheriff needed the FEMA reimbursement check worse than we did. We’re glad to have helped.
posted by steve | 9:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home