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Recalling Three Weeks in a Hurricane Katrina Shelter

A Tucson volunteer's account of time-well spent.

Dan Hoffman

Dan Hoffman is a longtime supporter of American Red Cross who’s served as a disaster relief volunteer and as a fundraising professional for the St. Paul, Minnesota and Southern Arizona Chapters.

Dan was deployed to serve Hurricane Katrina victims in Baton Rouge starting the day the storm began wreacking havoc on the gulf coast. He spent three weeks in the shelters there. Here’s an account of his experience.

Where did you start this journey?

In Houston, and we drove five hours to the Red Cross Staffing Center in Baton Rouge. Half of Baton Rouge was without power, so we checked in by flashlight, all the while in the dark and stifling hot and humid weather with no fans or air conditioning.

At orientation the next morning, we were told that we would ALL be mental health workers on this assignment. We were told to expect hardship; to sleep in shelters; and to work 12-hour shifts. We should expect to do anything we were asked.  We would encounter hygiene and health issues, and emotions that would be all over the place.

My team was assigned to the Baton Rouge River Center, the largest shelter in Louisiana. My assignment was to “work the floor of the shelters” responding to client needs, coordinating services, and troubleshooting for all functional areas.

What was it like when you arrived?

Picture in your mind a large exhibition hall and arena.  Now picture the mass of humanity filling all of those spaces -- the arena floor, the exhibition hall, and the lobby areas.  There were nothing but people: people sitting on the floor, lying on cots, milling about. There were no empty spaces. You’d see cots and blankets; bags of clothes, and makeshift cardboard cots where we didn’t have enough to for everyone.

Overview shot of Baton Rouge River Center shelter after Hurricane Katrina

From the news media, it seemed very chaotic.

Well, it was chaotic, which is what you’d expect with a disaster of this magnitude. What I saw at the shelter those early days was organized chaos. It was chaotic, yes, but the Red Cross knew what to do -- we were in the business of Mass Care (in Red Cross terms), which is to provide shelter, food, clothing, medical and mental health care for these people. Many people felt abandoned by their government. In some ways this was a “disaster upon a disaster.”  Time and time again I heard people say to me “thank you Red Cross- you were there! Our government wasn’t there, but you were there!” I felt genuine gratitude from these people. They were sincerely thankful for what the Red Cross was doing for them.

What was a typical day at the shelter?

There were three distinct shelters, as I said earlier. I moved between them doing any and every thing that I was called upon and able to do.  Here’s a list:  Getting a teddy bear for a child.  Taking names for cots and hoping more would arrive at the dock each day. Wheeling someone to the shelter hospital.  ”Gloving up” and clearing an area of abandoned cots and bedding.  Once I got a pair of pants for a man who’d soiled himself.  Fetching blankets, hygiene items, diapers.  Tracking down unusual or hard-to-find items for people who needed them, even if I had to bend the rules a bit.  Delivered meals to people who couldn’t make it to the food lines. If you can imagine it, I probably did it.

But most of all I just listened to people’s stories. I didn’t ask them to tell their story, to recount their pain; people needed to tell me their stories. They wanted to talk. For some, it was their therapy and for others it was hope -- hope that I or someone there could help them find their missing family members.

Credit: LIFE Magazine. Sept. 2005, Baton Rouge.

Was that accomplished?  How did Red Cross go about finding family members separated by the storm?

The searching for the missing was constant... we had 8 or 10 computers in our communications center, and volunteers were trying to input all of our shelter guests’ registration information. Other shelters were doing the same in these early days of the disaster. I logged in and checked most evenings, until I could get a volunteer to do periodic searches. (Note:  Red Cross operates the Safe and Well Network for people affected by a domestic disaster.)

Everyone had so much fear and anxiety about reaching their families, yet also a sense of hope prevailed.  Considering what they’d been through during the storm, I often wondered how people persevered. They had their sources of strength.  They knew what they needed in order to survive.

On quite a few occasions, I was moved to tears with a few reunions that I was a part of, people finding their loved ones. Plus I reunited Miss Audrey with her "family" -- her dog, Pepper (which involved trips to an animal evacuation center -- but that's another whole story!)

How did your Katrina deployment transform you?

I had gone from being a Red Cross representative to becoming a committed servant. I am not just describing the Red Cross anymore. Because of this experience, I am the Red Cross- I live it.  But more than that, I didn’t think about it while I was there, but was doing what we are supposed to do -- the Golden Rule -- do unto others as we would have.

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