Red Cross Chat

 - Post by Russ Paulsen

The tornado watch came first.

Then, a few sprinkles on the window.

Gustav has arrived in Baton Rouge.

We have basically held our breath since Thursday, waiting for this moment–and the terrible moments that will follow. We  worked frantically–sure we did–but on some level, we have all been holding our breath. Hoping that the forecast was wrong and it would fizzle. Feeling guilty because our seldom-spoken next hope was that it would go somewhere else–and we knew there were people there as well. Trying to stay focused on what we could do to be READY.

The Red Cross, other nonprofits, and various levels of government are certainly more ready than they were three years ago. And the fact that the vast majority of people appear to have heeded evacuation orders shows that Gulf Coast residents are more ready as well–which is key.

But organizations like the Red Cross being “ready” means that literally thousands of individual Red Cross volunteers and employees need to do their part to be ready.

It means volunteers canceling Labor Day weekend plans, jumping in a feeding truck, and driving for three days straight so they can sleep in a high school gym that will probably lose power (and therefore lights and air conditioning) in order to help people they don’t know and will probably never see again.

It means staff from the Red Cross Hurricane Recovery Program who have spent the past three years working to help New Orleans and the Gulf Coast recover suddenly are in charge of shelters of 100 or 200 people who are worried about what’s happening to their homes–again.

It means we all become amateur meteorologists who have favorite weather websites, who set our watches by the four daily updates from the National Hurricane Center, who know the difference between NOGAPS and HWRF.

We study the updates because we want to know what to be ready for. We have already opened shelters for thousands of people, but will they be able to go home Tuesday? Wednesday? Or is this really, as the mayor of New Orleans said yesterday, “the mother of all storms”? Will we measure the amount of time we shelter evacuees in months, as we did after Katrina, rather than our usual days?

The third anniversary of the biggest storm to hit the US came and went on Friday, and we commemorated it by holding our breath. And working like mad to make sure that things would be better this time.

We’ll be holding our breath tomorrow as well. Hurricanes pass over land slowly. But soon, we’ll exhale.

And that’s just the start.