Ee-Vack-You-Way-Shun

What seems like a month ago, was actually last Sunday. I woke up around 4 a.m. in order to get to the office by 5 a.m. and the New Orleans train station by 6 a.m.. Our task was to get the residents of New Orleans on the buses and out of the city. Everyone from my program who was there (this wasn't mandatory, only people who wanted to stay back and help were there) got their assignments for the day. My assignment was to hand water out to people before they got on the buses. I have to admit, before the whole thing started, I expected there to be mass chaos but everything was organzied every well. The residents were able to get through the line pretty quickly and off on their way. The whole experience was very interesting and humbling. Many residents were in pretty low spirits and I definitely heard a few people say that they wouldn't be coming back to New Orleans if the hurricane turned out to be bad. Most of the people taking the buses out of town came from the "swamps" as we were joking. But I really felt bad for these people. There were a lot of people who looked strung out on drugs and came from the worst areas of the city. Many of them were carrying as much as their arms could carry and some people barely had anything. They had travelled all day with their stuff just to get to the train station. Then, spend the next few hours on a bus out of town so that they could sit at a shelter for the next week, waiting to come back. Just handing them water and maybe making their day a little bit better made me feel like I was doing something. It was definitely a difficult day seeing these people and knowing how bad of shape the city is in and the effort it's going to take to turn it around.

We went back to our offices around 3 p.m. and rested up for a bit and ate in order to get ready to evacuate ourselves. Our plan was to head to Atlanta. I was driving with two other guys, one of which didn't have a license so was pretty much useless (and later turned out to be pretty annoying because why is someone who has no license a passenger seat driver?). We left at 4:30 and drove about 60 miles without any traffic, then the fun started. As contra-flow had stopped around 5 p.m., we went about 10 miles in the next three hours. I felt like I was driving home from Lake Forest on a Friday, only worse. On a normal day, we should have gotten to Atlanta in about 7 hours. We pulled into the house we were staying at around 8:30 a.m., 15 hours later. I honestly don't know how I made it through my 3:15-6:00 a.m. shift but we made it. There were about 12 of us staying in two different houses in Atlanta. My supervisor knew a couple of families in Atlanta so I stayed at one of the homes. I slept until about 4:30 in the afternoon and then went to a BBQ at the other house people were staying at. The family was really welcoming and had a nice house. We ate on the back deck and the house had a very southern feel to it. Both houses did. A lot of flowers on the couches and blinds. The back deck had nice furniture and lights outside. There were woods in the back of both houses. I almost felt like I was back at camp. It was nice.

The next day (Tuesday) we were given the option to return to New Orleans as first-responders back in the city (leaving at 3 p.m.) and help people return. Everyone except for me, and two others (Pat and John, who I mentioned in a previous post) wanted to get back. But given the long drive we just had, and the fact that I wasn't going to have power, I wasn't in the mood to hurry home. So everyone else headed back, and we stayed with John's aunt, who lived in Atlanta. I dropped my car off at her place and then we headed into downtown Atlanta. There really isn't much to see in Atlanta, I realized. We walked around the business district, went to the Olympic Park (the 1996 games were held in Atlanta for those that don't remember), and walked through the CNN Center. Unfortunately, the Coca-Cola Factory had closed. After walking around for awhile, we stopped at a pub, had a few beers and watched the U.S. Open. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. The next night Judith (John's aunt), Patty (Judith's neighbor and one of the most narotic Jewish women I've ever met), John, Pat, and I all BBQ'd and watched Sarah Palin's speech (don't get me started on that). Between the first family I stayed with and Judith, they were both so welcoming and took great care of us. They both made us feel right at home and probably even went overboard in looking after us. I almost didn't even mind being "displaced" for a couple days, though I was looking forward to getting back to New Orleans.

Thursday, we got an early start and about 10 hours later, we returned back home. After this trip to Atlanta, I had put close to 2,500 miles on my car since departing from Chicago two weeks early. Upon my arrival home, I was welcomed with no power. So I took a shower in the dark, grabbed a couple things and stayed at the house down the street (that has 5 people from my program staying there). That pretty much sums up the evacuation and my experience with it. I never really felt too bad for myself because what I was going through wasn't nearly as bad as what many of the residents we helped evacuate had to deal with. I had a nice place to stay and was able to enjoy another city while they sat in a shelter. The whole experience made me feel lucky to have what I do. Well, that's it for now. I'm still trying to catch up on what has been going on and will hopefully do so in the next day or two.