So this disaster wasn't the earth shattering ordeal that Katrina and Rita were. Each person down here who lost their home went through pure hell. Many here are still going through that. Don't for one minute think that I would ever diminish that. I haven't lived through it, but I've walked through the aftermath and stood there while the people told me what they lost.
This was different. We were on the end of this disaster where there were a few people whose homes were destroyed, but most had flooded basements. For most people I worked with, this disaster was a nuisance, not a nightmare. It's hard to feel much gratification for helping people when you really didn't.
But hey...I learned a lot about local/state/federal politics and the dynamics of a declared disaster. I can see this scenario in my neighborhood where the jurisdiction next door is more urban and is more affected. My jurisdiction next door might be analagous to Washington county. They're declared because all their neighbors are, so they declare the whole lower half of the state.
I will say that I'm proud to work for this organization. FEMA may be f-ed up in many ways, but they bring thousands of people, material, and piles of money into an area and stand up a fortune-500 sized organization in a matter of days and get good work done. These people that I work with are amazing. They're so dedicated to helping and making a positive difference...in spite of what many people think of the organization...and just keep plugging 12 hours a day for months on end. God bless them. Our nation owes them a debt of gratitude. I'm very proud to be part of it.
I'm going home on Tuesday. I miss my wife and kids terribly. I can't wait to get home. I have nothing wanting to keep me here in wisconsin like I did in Texas. I did what I came here to do...I think I did it honorably and I hope I advanced the art in some small way. I'm ready to go.
Tomorrow I will be closing the work out in Washington county. I will turn my maps and notes and reports and contacts over to the team lead and shove off to some other county to help out for a couple of days until I leave.
I'll be visiting Jen, my partner from Hurricane Rita, on Saturday and her husband and friends. We'll camp and drink some beer and party and generally have a great time. I can't wait. I have made another good friend this trip. Ron, my partner this time is a fantastic guy. Sixty-something, retired, hard working dude. You my boy, Ron!!
I'll try to make a couple more entries before I get, but we're pretty close to done.
Thanks, Wisconsin...I enjoyed your state. You're all very familiar, good people.
Michigan still makes better beer, though.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Settling into a groove
When it's good, its a groove, when it's bad, it's a rut.
We're groovin here in Washington County. For the past couple of days, we've been trying to root out where the damage is. This disaster isn't like hurricane Rita where you just look for the blue tarps on the roof.
First of all, you have to define the term 'storm damage' with people. In that stoic midwestern style and folksy Wisconsin accent, people just tell you 'Oh it was no big deeeeel. We just trew da rugs out and got on with it'. It's actually hard to find where the damage is here because most of it was a result of the water table making acquaintances with the surface. Basements being in between this rendezvous resulted in a lot of wet basements.
When water mixes with drywall and any other porous material, it forms yuckiness in the basement. 3 weeks after the storm, it forms toxic mold. My biggest worry is people (most often older folks) who just don't want to 'be a bother' to anyone. It sounds kind of silly, but I'm trying to get these people to register with FEMA when they 'only had a few inches' of water. That few inches, depending on the basement, can cause a household to get sick.
The routine has been to visit a town or village hall, root out some clues to where the damage is and then pound on doors the rest of the day preaching the gospel of 1-800-621-FEMA. Hey...its a job. If you keep looking at my Google map, you'll see where we've been.
Off to write reports now...
We're groovin here in Washington County. For the past couple of days, we've been trying to root out where the damage is. This disaster isn't like hurricane Rita where you just look for the blue tarps on the roof.
First of all, you have to define the term 'storm damage' with people. In that stoic midwestern style and folksy Wisconsin accent, people just tell you 'Oh it was no big deeeeel. We just trew da rugs out and got on with it'. It's actually hard to find where the damage is here because most of it was a result of the water table making acquaintances with the surface. Basements being in between this rendezvous resulted in a lot of wet basements.
When water mixes with drywall and any other porous material, it forms yuckiness in the basement. 3 weeks after the storm, it forms toxic mold. My biggest worry is people (most often older folks) who just don't want to 'be a bother' to anyone. It sounds kind of silly, but I'm trying to get these people to register with FEMA when they 'only had a few inches' of water. That few inches, depending on the basement, can cause a household to get sick.
The routine has been to visit a town or village hall, root out some clues to where the damage is and then pound on doors the rest of the day preaching the gospel of 1-800-621-FEMA. Hey...its a job. If you keep looking at my Google map, you'll see where we've been.
Off to write reports now...
Sunday, July 6, 2008
A little time off
We got to take the afternoon off this Sunday. My partner and I went to catch a Brewer's game. It was a beautiful day and I got the opportunity to add one more Major League ballpark to my collection. I've gotten to visit 3 ballparks on FEMA deployments so far.
Miller Park is really a nice ballpark. We got there a little later than we should so there was only standing room seats. Here's the view from Standing Room seats
Right on the 3B line...very nice. In the shade, the vendors walk right by, you're right in front of all the concessions. There are little tables to set your stuff on as well. I even got a bobblehead!
What a nice afternoon. Here's some more pics of the park.
The home team beat the Pittsburgh Pirates...happy day! Tomorrow, back to the grind. I have to be 40 minutes away at 7am tomorrow. So we hit the road at 6am.
Miller Park is really a nice ballpark. We got there a little later than we should so there was only standing room seats. Here's the view from Standing Room seats
Right on the 3B line...very nice. In the shade, the vendors walk right by, you're right in front of all the concessions. There are little tables to set your stuff on as well. I even got a bobblehead!
What a nice afternoon. Here's some more pics of the park.
The home team beat the Pittsburgh Pirates...happy day! Tomorrow, back to the grind. I have to be 40 minutes away at 7am tomorrow. So we hit the road at 6am.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Where in the world?
Hello,
I created a Google Map to show where I've been:
Click Here
The blue lines are places I've covered. The place marks are self explanatory.
I created a Google Map to show where I've been:
Click Here
The blue lines are places I've covered. The place marks are self explanatory.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Catch up
Dayum. I can't seem to keep up with one entry a day.
Here's a highlight reel...We screwed around for half a week and didn't have much of a plan. Then I got assigned to Washington County. The county seat is West Bend which is where I'm staying. This is a nice little town.
For the first day or so, we met the local officials and got the lay of the land. Turns out the damage was near the rivers and lakes in the county (go figure). I was given the lead for the county and assigned one community relations officer to help me. Ron is a great guy...a retired gentleman also from Michigan. He and I have been all over the county and we work well together.
He's not trying to impress anyone. He just wants to go door-to-door and meet people. We call it 'paper hanging' because we pass out flyers as part of our door-to-door routine. So after we got our base of operations all set up here at the Country Inn, we made a plan for how to attack this large county with only two people.
I really enjoy the fact that we are the only ones out here and we're left pretty much to our own devices. I think the leadership is pretty happy with our results, so the leave us alone...so far. We've visited some lakes in the area and have seen some pretty bad flooding in spots. Mostly, though, it's just basement flooding and other minor stuff.
Yesterday, we hit the lakes and saw the worst of the flooding so far. Some people there are truly devastated. This might be a minor disaster to the county as a whole, but these people are truly screwed up and hurting. If there's anything I can do for these people, they're going to be my priority.
Toward the end of yesterday, we stopped into the city of Hartford and met the Mayor and City Administrator. We hit the fire hall and talked to the fire inspector also and got a feel for what was going on there. Today, we hit the streets hard.
Again, not much damage..just a few damp basements. But then came the crown jewel of the entire trip so far: Ms Nellie.
Ms. Nellie is 93 years young. She's spry and lives by herself. Her husband passed 30 years ago and she has no family left. She has a nephew who helps out once in a while, but otherwise she has nobody to talk to. I arrived at her door to ask how she got through the flood. She said she was fine, but had some damage downstairs. She couldn't do much about it because she can't get down the stairs.
She couldn't give a damn about the water in her basement. There was someone on her porch to talk to. So we talked.
And talked...about 20 minutes into the visit, I realized why God was letting me exist on the planet at that moment. My job was to stand there just as long as Ms. Nellie wanted to talk and keep this woman company for a little while.
She told me about her husband...owned a hardware store. Times were hard during the depression. She's always scrimped and saved. She told me about her life and her church and everything else. Her views on the world today, politics, philosophy and everything else.
She finally ran out of gas and I stood there and shook her withered, arthritic hand and wished her well and walked off her porch...I'm a much richer man for having met Ms. Nellie. She absolutely made my trip.
Just when I thought this wasn't going to be a very rewarding trip.
Here's a highlight reel...We screwed around for half a week and didn't have much of a plan. Then I got assigned to Washington County. The county seat is West Bend which is where I'm staying. This is a nice little town.
For the first day or so, we met the local officials and got the lay of the land. Turns out the damage was near the rivers and lakes in the county (go figure). I was given the lead for the county and assigned one community relations officer to help me. Ron is a great guy...a retired gentleman also from Michigan. He and I have been all over the county and we work well together.
He's not trying to impress anyone. He just wants to go door-to-door and meet people. We call it 'paper hanging' because we pass out flyers as part of our door-to-door routine. So after we got our base of operations all set up here at the Country Inn, we made a plan for how to attack this large county with only two people.
I really enjoy the fact that we are the only ones out here and we're left pretty much to our own devices. I think the leadership is pretty happy with our results, so the leave us alone...so far. We've visited some lakes in the area and have seen some pretty bad flooding in spots. Mostly, though, it's just basement flooding and other minor stuff.
Yesterday, we hit the lakes and saw the worst of the flooding so far. Some people there are truly devastated. This might be a minor disaster to the county as a whole, but these people are truly screwed up and hurting. If there's anything I can do for these people, they're going to be my priority.
Toward the end of yesterday, we stopped into the city of Hartford and met the Mayor and City Administrator. We hit the fire hall and talked to the fire inspector also and got a feel for what was going on there. Today, we hit the streets hard.
Again, not much damage..just a few damp basements. But then came the crown jewel of the entire trip so far: Ms Nellie.
Ms. Nellie is 93 years young. She's spry and lives by herself. Her husband passed 30 years ago and she has no family left. She has a nephew who helps out once in a while, but otherwise she has nobody to talk to. I arrived at her door to ask how she got through the flood. She said she was fine, but had some damage downstairs. She couldn't do much about it because she can't get down the stairs.
She couldn't give a damn about the water in her basement. There was someone on her porch to talk to. So we talked.
And talked...about 20 minutes into the visit, I realized why God was letting me exist on the planet at that moment. My job was to stand there just as long as Ms. Nellie wanted to talk and keep this woman company for a little while.
She told me about her husband...owned a hardware store. Times were hard during the depression. She's always scrimped and saved. She told me about her life and her church and everything else. Her views on the world today, politics, philosophy and everything else.
She finally ran out of gas and I stood there and shook her withered, arthritic hand and wished her well and walked off her porch...I'm a much richer man for having met Ms. Nellie. She absolutely made my trip.
Just when I thought this wasn't going to be a very rewarding trip.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Nursing Home with 82 residents who had to relocate. The containers are their belongings being trucked away...sad
Saturday:
Today we went to Jefferson County to revisit the community of Fort Atkinson. We kept canvassing in the areas that we noticed had definite flood damage. It's been 3 weeks since the first part of the flooding and people are starting to get on with things where the damage was, but the river is still bank-full at least. Another line of storms dumping rain is going to soak these people again. I hope that doesn't happen.
Tonight I went over to Erin's Snug Irish Pub. Nice joint except I was damn near the only one in there. I had dinner there and a couple of sodas and played some darts with some of the staff that was bored by the lack of business. Nice group of people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)