Serious weather has been hitting much of the country this last week, forcing many families to seek warmth and electricity in a Red Cross shelter. Below you’ll find a couple of bloggers who shared their experiences of making the best out of difficult situations.

From PhatBoyG, who was pleasantly surprised by the comforts and wifi provided in a Tulsa shelter:

We initially planned to “tough it out” but realized quickly that with two young children (1 year and 5 years), it just wasn’t a smart choice. So we packed up some blankets and drove to an area church where the Red Cross had set up a relief shelter for those without heat. I was a bit tentative at first, but our options were limited.

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Most of the people we met were just like us, stuck without power or heat and children that needed to stay warm. Yes, while most of the city was without power, cable, internet, and phone, we had broadband at the shelter. 

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We were grateful to have warmth on a cold night, grateful for a hot breakfast and clean, warm showers, and confident we had made the right choice for our children. I guess the take away from this post is always do the right thing for your children and leave your preconceptions behind. And next time you watch the victims of a hurricane in Louisiana, a wildfire in California, or an ice storm in Oklahoma, think twice before you dismiss those who chose to make those places their home.

And Ellis Murphree blogged about making the best of his family’s experience in a Red Cross shelter:

Listening to the radio we discovered that there was no power anywhere in town, so we went to the Red Cross shelter so we could get a warm cup of coffee and try to find out some information from the folks there. As soon as we got there the Red Cross representative asked us if we wanted to get cots reserved for the five of us since power wasn’t expected to be restored for at least 2 days! We got the cots, came home and got bedding, and headed back to the shelter to ride the rest of this thing out.We spent about 3 hours at the shelter mingling with the folks, eating lunch, and watching “Cars” when suddenly, the lights came on! The problem turned out to be a tad less major than the power company had assumed and they were able to get power restored to a large part of the city…as it turned out, our house was part of that section (although, not everyone in our neighborhood has power just yet).

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The kids are a tad disappointed that we didn’t get to sleep on the cots at the shelter, but when they found out that school was canceled tomorrow (for the 3rd consecutive day), they kind of forgot about missing out on the adventure of sleeping on cots with a couple of hundred other people!

UPDATE: Flickr user Melodrama Maniac has uploaded a bunch of telling photos from last week’s ice storm in Oklahoma.

Filed under: Disaster Response