Dora, Edmund and Stacey are shown as we arrived in Houston to rent autos after Hurricane Katrina was declared. I worked for SBA (Small Business Administration) doing disaster loans. Previously I had flown from Sacramento with the three shown and we secured cars in Houston and drove to Baton Rouge.
Sunrise in Louisiana--Seen driving from the gym Dora and I were staying in on the way to Baton Rouge to help applicants housed in a shelter.
We worked there doing applications for help for New Orleans evacuees and then I was transferred to Texas to work in Port Arthur.
In Port Arthur I showed my inexperience again at how to organize the applicants to keep order. Also my partner nagged me all the time because I was the leader but he had more experience. When I was ordered to leave Port Arthur because Hurricane Rita was on the way, he wanted me to let him drive us to his home to the west first so he could check on his home. It was quite a distance and I was not going to do it without authority. I finally arranged for him to go with a leader to his home and then I carried out the instructions I was given and headed north to escape Hurricane Rita. All of this is done on the run.
It was an exciting trip up north to find a place to stay, we stayed one night in a school gym and then finally settled in a nice little town called Tyler for one night in a hotel. Then there were so many Texans evacuating who had called ahead and secured the rooms we had to move on to Fort Worth where three of our group lived. Since we arrived late at night I did not go to a hotel but went with one of the FEMA leaders who had a large home there. The next day I was called to task on that, I should have gone to a hotel and not to their home. Wow, I was learning everything after the fact on this trip. I just smiled and complied.
We worked in the Fort Worth office over the weekend and then headed back to Houston to stay then were assigned to mobile Recovery Centers for Hurricane Rita. This was my first experience doing this so it was interesting to observe that the leader (a guy) kept his guy friends close and sent us women out to the posts farthest away. Yes, there is discrimination in the government!!!!
My sight was in Spurger, about 130 miles from Houston and 54 from Beaumont. Until we could move back into Beaumont when the power and lights were back on it was a grueling drive back and forth to Houston. The trees were broken like toothpicks or completely toppled over from Rita. Many of the trees fell on homes and it will be a long process getting people back to a normal way of life again. Most everyone is so appeciative of the help FEMA, SBA and the Texas Government are giving them.
Working in the tent with all the other workers...not as much privacy as I needed.
When I would arrive back in Houston, my FEMA friend would get on the phone with me and tell me which exit to take to get back to my hotel, there were so many it was very confusing. We did not have GPS at this time.
Larry, the Texas Government representative I am posing with, joined SBA as a Loss Verifier after working in Spurger for the month.
This was my first experience being a leader out in the field so I did not know a lot. When I was offered the motor home to be in for interviewing the applicants I said, "Oh, I don't need that, this is just fine for interviewing." So FEMA got to use the motor home.
Actually working there would have been so much better because of being able to have more privacy and hearing them better than working out in the large tent. My mistake. I had a lot to learn. Leaders would often assume I had more experience than I did because of my age I guess. So I had to learn to hard way.
Stacey and Marcine the FEMA ladies are career women who volunteered to work for FEMA. They were so good with the applicants!
They got to work in the motor home and it was very nice for them!!!