Comin' Home

What is up y'all? It has been a very long week but even with that, I'm still going to make this an awesome post. So as I left off in my last post, I returned back to New Orleans on Thursday, had my power back on Friday morning (which was nice, except for having to clean out all of the gross food in the freezer and fridge), and went straight back to work on Friday. It was a very hot and humid day and I spent it working outside at our warehouse moving heavy doors and windows around. I got decent color so I was pretty happy about that but was pretty tired by the end of the day. I was planning on going out Friday night but found out at the end of the work day that I was going to have to be back at the train station (where we helped people evacuate) at 8 am on Saturday morning. I got a lot of sleep on Friday night because I was exhausted after a day in the sun. I have found myself slowly gaining more energy but for the first couple of weeks, it was hard to have the energy to do much after work. There are definitely things on the agenda that I need to get going but have been a bit worn down. I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning but couldn't find breakfast anywhere because Walgreens and the gas station near me were still closed. I arrived at the train station and it was relatively quiet. My first job was to unload MRE's (Meals Ready-to-Eat) from a truck, which was provided by the Red Cross. Originally, we were told to put two boxes of MRE's on each bus going back into the city but this is where bureaucracy reared its ugly head. At first, we were told to put two boxes of MRE’s on each bus. Then, we were told not to put any on there. And then, we were instructed to give them out, only if people asked for them. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out what the actual resolution was because myself, and the rest of the volunteers with my program (about 15 were there that day) were told to assist residents off the buses that they took to evacuate and help them get their bags and onto the buses that were going to take them to their communities. In the morning, we never got a huge rush of buses so it was pretty orderly. It was difficult at times to get people their bags and the correct number of bags. In the afternoon, there were numerous buses coming in at all times, which made things very hectic. People were getting off the buses before we could unload them so there was a lot of yelling and disorganization but we managed to get by. As hard of work that it was, I really enjoyed talking to the people as they came back. Many seemed worn out from the trip. These people evacuated the previous Friday-Sunday, sat in a shelter for a week, and the spent another whole day in a bus getting back. I felt terribly for these people and what they had to go through. What was kind of shocking to me was that people seemed genuinely disappointed that the hurricane wasn’t worse. Their thought was, “Why did I have to leave if the hurricane wasn’t going to be that bad?” I wanted to say, “because at least you are alive and there’s a good chance your house didn’t blow down or flood,” but obviously I didn’t say that. The toughest part of the day Saturday (besides not eating lunch till 1:30, but it was a good Subway sandwich) was seeing how hard it was for the people with special needs to travel and what they had to go through just to stay safe. Three people died on the way out of New Orleans just from having to go through the evacuation process. It felt really good to help these people out and when they weren’t screaming at us to get us their bags, or a wheelchair, or a cart, they seemed genuinely appreciative that we were there helping them. I’m not just saying this because I was a part of this, but if it wasn’t for our program (Rebuilding Together), bringing people back into the city would have been so much worse. The National Guard, the New Orleans Police Department, FEMA, and the Red Cross barely did anything. The Red Cross had 5 people standing around water handing it to people on the way out. We got over 12,000 people back in between Friday and Saturday and I can’t imagine how it would have gone without us. It makes me question these organizations and their commitment to serving. I’m not saying that these organizations don’t help people, but they are extremely disorganized and don’t understand how to handle situations. It made me feel proud to be a part of an organization that was able to be effective and efficient and help these people. Our program director was very happy with our efforts and how they day turned out. She took us out for beers afterwards, which was nice after a ten and a half hour Saturday. I came home, showered, had a light dinner, and went to some friends’ house. We had a few beers and were going to try and go out for the night but were all far too tired and never made it out.

I woke up Sunday and someone from my program called me and told me he had a free ticket to the New Orleans Saints game that started at noon. We had discussed the ticket the previous day but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go. So when he decided he didn’t want to, I jumped at the chance to go. I ended up going with two other girls from my program. Both of these girls are very nice and very into volunteering and into the program which I respect but I don’t really know how much we have in common and didn’t have a ton to talk about. Nonetheless, I had a good time at the game. It gets insanely loud inside the Superdome (which I learned is the biggest dome in the United States). After being so used to Soldier Field, the inside is just alright and I feel like could use some renovations. At one point during the game, I definitely got caught up in thinking about what it was like in there during Hurricane Katrina and that people walked miles in deep water just to get there and was stuck there for days. But then Drew Brees threw his second touchdown pass which got me back to thinking about how he was killing my team in fantasy football. I was happy the Saints won because with Gustav and the possibility at the time of Ike, the city needed something good. Getting out of the Superdome was insane. What usually would be a ten minute ride home, turned into over an hour. I feel like my whole life (dating back to my days long ago at Ernst & Young) is sitting in traffic. When this whole thing is done, I’m going to write a book about my experience and call it “Avoiding Traffic” (not really, but maybe I will). Anyways, I got back home and had to get ready for orientation which started at 5 p.m. This is where I’m going to leave off for now. I’ll get into orientation in my next posting. It has definitely been an interesting week so far. Hope everyone is doing well and I hope to hear from those of you who I haven’t yet, and I’ll try and get in touch with you all as well. Have a good one.