MY LIFE FROM LAKE ALMANOR AND BEYOND

Saturday, November 19, 2005

On to Galveston

Leaving the Beaumont Office and on to Galveston where I will be working in the DRC there till it closes.

The birds crowd at the end of the ferry and swoop around you.

A welcome from the birds.

Since I won't be home for Thanksgiving I thought I would get a little nostalgic and use my Thanksgiving picture from last year to get me in the mood for the holiday. I had been working in Sacramento processing loans from Hurricane Charley, etc. so my daughter Maria brought her family from Susanville and we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Black Angus in Folsom. My family is too far away this year so who knows where I will eat. Maybe go view the birds again. As I drove down from Beaumont I could still see so much debris and devastation around. There is so much recovery left. The biggest threat I hear about as I meet with the applicants is the evergrowing mold in their homes...there just isn't enough money or help to put it all back together. 13 of our applicants last week were still living in their cars!!! 900 trailers went out from Jasper to applicants this week but we just can't seem to keep up with the need.

From Spurger to Beaumont DRC

Charlie is the leader in our Beaumont Office and makes sure we do the best job we can for our applicants by doing complete interviews and getting the information needed. He has been teaching us all to know how to team lead a Disaster Recovery Center for SBA.

Evanne is the one who sees that all applications are fed exed to arrive at the processing center in Fort Worth the next day. There is a lot of preparation and record keeping and she is busy, busy all day but so well-organized she makes it look easy. (It isn't, in a large center like Beaumont.)

Spurger Disaster Team! A few of them have been working in the Beaumont Disaster Center this month before going home to their regular jobs. They volunteered to help FEMA and were paid by their regular employers. What a great group they have been!

Also pictured are some of the Shaw team that makes the centers function so well. I have been in the Beaumont Center for the past few weeks also. I have met many new SBA friends and have enjoyed that.

There are too many good places to eat in Beaumont, however, and that is the main attraction.

We have had several of the smaller centers close and so at times we have too many of us there for the number of applicants. Some are sent home or to another area each week.

Maria sent my laptop and Bob, the FEMA computer expert fixed it so I can go wireless or data port in the hotels I stay in...and he zonked out the many bugs I had! I now can communicate again!! Thank you, thank you so much, Bob.

This week I am the lucky one as I have been sent to team lead the Galveston Center. Haven't been to Galveston yet but understand it is like Pacific Beach/Mission Beach in California, Yea!

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Kristi's Wedding

I was in San Diego for my granddaughter's (Kristi) wedding! Kristi and M

ike were married Oct. 29th in the San Diego Temple. Congratulations Kristi and Mike, you are beautiful. Besides the wedding and lovely reception I enjoyed posing with my beautiful grandchildren. See me with Michael, my oldest grandson and Amy and Kelly (sisters) and Melissa. The two flower girls on each side of the bride are my granddaughters Lea and Sarah. Aren't they all darling... I am also pictured with my three children, Maria, James and Linda...Kristi is Linda's oldest child. What a fun day, I'm so glad I was able to be there!

Friday, October 28, 2005

Called to Service in the Field after Hurricane Kathrina hit!!!

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.