Tom's Texas blog #6

Assignment: Hurricane Ike response, Workforce Planning and Acquisition manager, Texas, USA
Volunteer: Tom Windebank
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Hi blog, I've been busy, so I have some catching up to do....

With so much happening down here - financial crises, last night's presidential candidate's debate and the election in general - the response to Hurricane Ike has fallen off the front pages and it's getting more difficult to find people to fill all the vacant positions - in particular nurses and ERV drivers. I've gotten a day off....so laundry comes first and then I'm going down to Galveston to see the Red Cross operation on the island.

Interstate 45 takes me south across the flat swampy brush of coastal Texas, oil refinery complexes seem to stretch from one horizon to another. Approaching Galveston the damage to houses and other structures is significant - a lot of tarped buildings, some structures reduced to a skeleton of beams, piles of debris by the side of the road and lines of smashed pleasure craft crazily wedged against the highway barrier. In town very little is working - huge numbers of houses have a rotting pile of debris sitting outside, damaged drywall, furniture and bedding - still no power - most businesses closed and many streets closed for hydro and clean-up crews to do their work. The town seems barely alive.

The mass shelter on 81st consists of four huge white FEMA tents accommodating almost 1,000 clients. There's tight security and a line of ERVs ready to serve lunch. The Red Cross staff are cheerful and helpful, as usual. They give me directions to the impressive bulk distribution center and kitchen at Galveston Airport. When I get there I see rows of trailers are being emptied by Salvation Army fork lift drivers - a row of Southern Baptist Convention kitchens is producing thousands of meals every day ready to be loaded onto a fleet of Red Cross ERVs. It's an impressive operation.

Driving along the seawall, lazy pelicans glide over the still water....a line of oil rigs and a convoy of tankers far out at sea.

It's another day....at the morning briefing the director tells us that the end of the DR may be in sight - we have a closing date for the Galveston shelter, Oct 26, but up to 10,000 homes remain uninhabitable with no power and the mass feeding operation on Galveston will continue. Houston is almost completely back on its feet with the very last hydro repairs being made.

I'm asked to assess the conditions at our few remaining staff shelters (most of us are now in hotels) and determine which ones should be closed first. At Baytown the shelter is a sprawling Methodist church filled with ERV crews and Southern Baptist Convention cooks - donkey pumps slowly rise and fall in nearby back yards. The few volunteers I meet seem cheerful, but the shelter itself seems a little uncomfortable for people in their fourth week of deployment. I'm told that the kitchen there is expected to close in a few days as power is restored and the need for feeding declines.

Onto the Louisiana state line across an ocean of low scrub and more oil refineries to the FEMA base camp - it's a bit like entering a space ship. An impressive, air conditioned, instant little town sitting in a field surrounded by three layers of armed security. Inside, a summer camp feel permeates and everyone looks very happy to be there.

Then back to Houston on the crowded I10. It's as big as the 401 but lined for miles with neon signs, restaurants, night clubs and blazing billboards - enormous corporate towers glowing in the night air - makes me think of the movie Bladerunner. The last shelter and mass kitchen I visit is closing as I get there - the Houston operation is rapidly closing down.

Goodnight blog