I'm cross posting this from Underachievers since most Killoggers prolly don't read it.
Argh. I walked out of the Red Cross headquarters here in Baton Rouge early today... sick of doing busy work. I've been helping run phone and data lines for IP phones for the past two days, but Vic, the retired phone guy I've been shadowing, ran out of things for me to do and had me taping up cables to the bottoms of the fold out tables they had covering the expanse of the gutted closed down Wal Mart. Combined with the feeling of wasting my time, I overheard a couple of families at the fenced in entrance asking for assistance. That being the operational headquarters, they don't have any services there for "clients" (what the Red Cross calls those they help)... so I saw them turned away and being told to call a 1-800 number, a number close to no one has been able to get through on for 3 days. One guy was pretty pissed and for good reason, he has been trying to get a family into shelters for days, and said that since the phone numbers weren't working he figured he'd come down in person to get the info... and they had nothing for him. The guy guarding the gate just avoided his questions... it was pretty appalling. I also witnessed the waste and glut of money the Red Cross has at it's disposal: We had started setting up a small call center on the fold out tables that were setup. We went to take a break and when we came back, all the tables we had sort of wired up were gone and were being replaced with brand new ones that some guy had ordered because the old ones were "too old"... which was ridiculous. They were in perfect shape, just not glossy on top. "There goes someone's relief card," said Sherman, the retired engineer and long time Red Cross volunteer I was working with.
The Red Cross had tons of satellite and database problems today and it showed... I witnessed a lot of calls being dropped. Can you imagine calling a number for DAYS at a time and finally getting through, only to have the call cut out on you?!
All that said, for the geek side of me the tech behind the operation was pretty cool to see and be a part of. Servers in shock mount crates with sat. uplinks that were plug and play, with Cisco IP phones EVERYWHERE. I wish I had my digital camera with me to show some photos of the operation floor. Pretty crazy, and very ad hoc with cables strung from the ceiling and running all over the place.
Monday morning before Mom and I went to the Red Cross we shuttled goods around for VOA which felt like helping at least. So... I'm gonna find somewhere else to give a hand. Not having my own car is a real issue around here... and traffic is ungodly. If I had my own car I think I'd head to the Gulf Coast... seems like they still have some areas in desperate need. Haven't figured out what I'll be doing tomorrow yet. Maybe I'll go back to the Red Cross and get in with another group,
SO... for those looking for places to donate and volunteer... I can't recommend the Red Cross at the moment. I'll update again if I can find anything else, I have a few leads.
loren [email] said at 2:27 AM 09-14-2005: The shelters are (thus the people coming to where I was asking wtf they were supposed to do) shutting down. I was at the headquarters... ops center, whatever you want to call it.
KCCANNOTUSEHERHEAD said at 7:32 PM 09-14-2005: loren, keep it up man... if i could get out of my signed-in-blood japanese contract, i would be there, too... i have a friend in oregon who is considering heading down to volunteer, but he doesnt have a place to stay or know where to go to offer his services... if you can think of anything, email me please!
jess [email] said at 7:34 PM 09-14-2005: I've been trying to volunteer at the DC Armory since the people were flown in here and I've been given no less than five different numbers to call and sign up with, all of which I've signed up with - all of which have called me back and told me to sign up with one of the other numbers. I am waiting patiently on a list SOMEWHERE. Bureaucracy will be the death of us all.
NathanK said at 9:18 PM 09-14-2005: My sister was volunteering at the Centroplex for a week and a half. She said most of the managment of the Red Cross team were very eldery and managed things too slowly. She said she hadn't seen much of the S.Army although she said they were giving away $20 of clothing per person. She said the religious shelters seemed to be run much better
