DR 364-12

This week has been a long one. The majority of this post will be dedicated to the Red Cross disaster relief effort after the tornadoes early Monday morning and other work related occurrences. I honestly can barely remember anything else I did anyway, but we’ll begin with the events leading up to DR 364-12, as it is officially called in Red Cross Lingo.

Wednesday, Maggie and I joined the rest of our team for another successful week at trivia. We were “Not the Droids You’re Looking for.” It’s one of my favorite team names ever. I’m going to vom if “Furburger hold the Ketchup” shows up again.

Thursday was crazy fire case day. We had two fires affecting three families on the same street within two hours of one another. Also, the second case was all kind of ridiculous. I can’t share personal details due to client confidentiality, but let’s just say that of the few people that had residence verification all of them used subpoenas.

Friday was the West Alabama Chapter’s Boston Butt sale. That morning I drove over to Bibb County to do casework for a fire and then returned to pick up some butts to take to Hoover. These are the greasiest hunks of meat I have ever seen. We had to double bag all of them just so people could take them home. At least they taste good.

This weekend was my first rehearsal for Hamlet. Sunday we blocked Acts IV and V. I think I’m really going to enjoy this production because everyone acts so professional. They all have fun, but we’ve been getting things done without any drama or childish behavior. It’s very refreshing. I also got to revisit Mafioaza's, a restaurant I worked at. Jeremy and I had a great waitress and a good meal even if it was loud and super crowded.

After rehearsal I stayed up until 5 am watching the weather just in case it affected any of my counties. Luckily it missed us, but it did cause a significant amount of damage in Jefferson, St Claire, and Chilton counties. I was in constant contact with my supervisor, and she told me to report to Hoover the next morning to get to work on the DR (Disaster Relief).

I got to the state office at 9 and was quickly assigned to the Disaster Assessment group. The five initial actions of the Red Cross after a disaster are Feeding, Sheltering, Disaster Assessment, Fundraising/ Publicity, and Staffing Local Government EOCs. Disaster Assessment has to be done quickly because it provides information used to create mobile feeding routes, to choose shelter locations, and to determine the amount and type of assistance the Red Cross. During the morning, we took calls from teams in the field as well as fire departments and the sometimes unreliable person who was actually affected by the disaster.

After getting the area assessment done, we sent out multiple two person teams to the affected areas to begin the Detailed Damage Assessment. This involved going door to door and putting each residence damaged into one of five classification categories based upon certain criteria. I was partnered with John Greco from Cullman, who oddly enough took a Disaster Assessment course that I taught. For the next three days, we did DDA between 20th and 25th Avenues NW in Center Point, AL. We were not in the area of the heaviest damage in the state, but we still saw some homes in terrible condition. Most streets were impassible to cars so we had to walk over debris and trees just to get down once busy streets. John took over 50 photos, so I’ll share some with you.





That was the worst house we saw. It's on 23rd Terrace NW, and it was pushed completely off of its foundation.

After the tornado in Tuscaloosa, I felt so useless. Anywhere I volunteered, I only did meaningless tasks like sorting and directing parking lot traffic. Now I see the true value in being a trained volunteer. The work I did meant something. Not only was I getting necessary work done for the Red Cross, but I was also out there interacting with the people. I was someone they could talk to about what happened, and I was able to give them information about where they could get food and shelter. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life even if it drained all of my energy.

Some recent James quotes:

“I got a bone to pick with you.”

“Ah, no! Don’t do karate on me.”

“I’ll laugh at that.”

“That cheese gonna stop you up.”