In 2005, I had been volunteering with the St. Louis Red Cross only a few months when Hurricane Katrina hit. It was my first major disaster. My husband, daughter Melissa and I watched TV as the weather became nastier and more violent in the southeast part of the country. We divided our time between Hurricane Katrina and preparing for Melissa’s birthday party.

 

Melissa sometimes came to the Red Cross to volunteer with me, helping with whatever needed to be done that she was allowed to do. So when I got a call from Shelter Manager Dan Flippen who asked if I would be part of the team to set up the Boeing hanger as a mass shelter, I said yes and asked if Melissa could help. I couldn’t leave her by herself for the 12 hours that my shift lasted.  “Great” was Dan’s reply, “I have just the job for her - she can be my assistant and extra set of legs.” It was a huge facility and a massive job that took the combined efforts of many of our partner agencies. Nothing on the scale of Katrina had ever been done before, so we spent Melissa’s birthday, August 31, 2005, helping those who had just lost everything but what they had with them.                        

 

I then got transferred to client casework at the Chapter headquarters. People were migrating and evacuating from the Gulf. The Red Cross had set up client services processing and had lots of case workers on hand to assist families. It was a process that included seeing a doctor if you needed replacement medicine and many other types of assistance. Melissa transferred to helping another volunteer, Wanda, with the client service waiting area. Here is where we realized what mattered most to everyone: their pictures. No matter how much they lost, before they got in the car and came to St. Louis, they grabbed family photos.

 

Most everyone that I assisted said they had lived through hurricanes all of their lives and had “never ever experienced anything like this storm.” I had seen the news footage and saw the devastation that Katrina had caused, but I was stunned by the heartache and helplessness of the people that we helped. Katrina did not play favorites - she wrecked the lives of the rich and the poor. Most started off the client interview with "I have never had to ask for a hand out before." I told them not to look at it as a hand out but to look at it as a hand up and hug from the generous American people.   

 

Joanie