WATERMARK

From noah, at the Well. Posted with his permission.

This was my day today:

I worked with Katrina evacuees today. I work in the public affairs office of
the City of Raleigh. On Monday, 397 evacuees were flown to RDU airport and
brought to the former Nortel training facility in west Raleigh to be housed.
On Saturday, I got a call from my boss to do some preliminary work for their
eventual arrival. The police at the facility were told they’d be there
between 1 a.m and 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. That window kept moving and
finally got pushed back to Monday.

I arrived at the facility this morning and got a quick briefing from a lady
with Wake County’s public affairs office. I’d be working for her and helping
her office. The down and dirty: 397 folks ranging from age two to age 97.
Three planeloads of people arrived and two of them were from New Orleans. No
one seemed to know where the other plane was from. The first floor of the
facility was open to everyone. Offices were not being used to hold temporary
quarters for employment security
commission folks, red cross workers, hospital workers, grief counselors,
wake county public school workers, and everything in between. The most
disorganized, confused angry office? The one housing the FEMA folks.

Of the 397 there, I saw three white people and five hispanic people. The
rest were black. The black folks were from Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Nigeria and
the US. My job was to be an escort for media reps working on their stories
and I’d be fielding a few calls and helping return calls that were coming in
from all over.

I am a former reporter and naturally, I fell right back into reporter mode
on my first task. I ended up asking more questions than the print reporter I
was escorting and she had to pull me aside and tell me to back off (she was
asking the wrong questions….). I kept my mouth shut and hung back a little
ways.

They had set up portable showers for the "intake" and apparently they were
expecting a few more people to show up. The intake was being done by workers
from a nearby hospital. The lead medic was telling his crew, "I know a lot
of you have military experience, but remember: These people don’t know where
they are. They just got off the plane and we have to be very careful with
them." When you arrived at the facility, you were asked to step over to the
showers. Men and women had different facilities, naturally. If your clothes
were soiled or too dirty to wear, you were asked to place them in a plastic
bag for disposal. You were given a bar of soap and a towel. Hose yourself
off and get dry. You were given a one-piece jumpsuit (blue, not an orange
one) and some slippers.

Next, you enter the facility and you’d get an ID badge. It had your name,
the location of the facility (901 Corporation PKWY/Raleigh) and your picture
on it. It had a little lanyard, so you could wear it around your neck. You
had to wear it at all times. If you needed clothes, there was a room with
new clothes that Wake County had and some donated clothes from the Salvation
Army. You also got a room assignment for you to sleep. The training
facilities upstairs had been converted to "dorms" for people. They tried to
match people up, so families slept together with other families and people
were sorted by age and sex. There were cots and blankets and pillows for
people.

I started talking to the evacuees and introducing myself…and I fell in
love with everyone. These were the nicest people you’d ever want to be
around in your life. Everyone had one of two names: "Brother" or "sister." I
was expecting a lot of anger and really, I didn’t see any. Everyone I spoke
with responded with a smile. Everyone asked me how *I* was doing.

The first man I met was an Austrailian named Steven Hose. A big tall guy
with a long pony tail, a scraggly beard and a "jagermeister" tattoo on his
forearm, he had  come to New Orleans, liked the seediness and managed to get
a job in the French Quarter working at a strip club doing a little of
everything. Bouncer, bartender, doorman, handyman. When the storm hit, he
lost everything…including his immigration stuff. His one concern was
trying to get a message to his mom and dad that he was okay. At the time,
there wasn’t a phone bank with international dialing access set up, so I
took his info and promised I’d try and call for him.

Next, I met a woman from Time Warner Cable who was hellbent and determined
to help someone (goddammit). She had called FEMA (not knowing who to call)
and introduced herself, said she was a rep from TWC and she wanted to help.
The FEMA operator said, "Great. Lower my cable bill." She got in her car and
drove over and was looking for a family to help. I got her into the facility
past the police officers and she found a couple pretty quickly. Her church
had pooled their money and bought a BUNCH of $100 gift cards to Target and
Wal-Mart. She drove the family over to Target to get some toiletries and
some clothes….but you know what this woman who had lost EVERYTHING she
ever owned did?? She used her $100 gift card to buy stuff for everyone else.
She bought a bunch of toys for the kids and clothes for the collection
table. "I got my ass covered. I don’ need no mo’."

Finally, realizing that some people just weren’t going anywhere without
their pets…they are starting to make some accomodations for people with
dogs and cats. I met a man who smuggled a mini-pinscher in a suitcase. He
was sprawled out on a cot with this TEENY little thing curled up in a ball
between his legs. I introduced myself. This guy was about 70 with a full
head of white hair and a great white beard that was shocking in contrast to
his dark skin. In a cajun accent as thick as Justin Wilson’s belly, he
explained, "Ah couldn’t leave dis heeyah little one anymo than I could have
leff my children."

The local animal shelter and humane society set up a facility out behind the
place for people who had animals as well. They had a couple of cats and
about a dozen dogs. Most of them were in pretty good shape, but there was
one dog that had blisters on his paws from walking in the water. Volunteers
from the NC State vet school were checking them out and said the blisters
weren’t a serious problem and would heal with some salve. There was a
schnauser (schnauzer?) that had even saved his owner when the floodwaters
came. Once the water came in the first floor, his barks woke everyone up and
let them know it was time to leave.

Around 11:30, I headed over to the cafeteria. I wanted to eat so I could go
back to work for all the TV stations that were doing their noon live shots
from the plant. The cafeteria was empty so I found a worker and explained my
situation. Any chance you could find something for me? This woman put her
hands on her hips and indignantly said, "HELLLL NO! BACK OF THE LINE!!!" Her
co-worker pointed out that…I was the line. They both laughed and
disappeared in the back. When they came back, they had a plate full of
fries, a burger and some chicken fingers. I sat down at a table beside a
couple of old cuban men playing cards. They both smiled, welcomed me, and
when I started to eat, they pointed out how good the food had been at
breakfast. It *was* pretty tasty. The executive chef for the cafeteria
wandered by and I thanked him for the food.

"EVERYONE’s gonna eat here. I don’t have everything I need to do it right,
but EVERYONE’s gonna eat. These aren’t refugees! These are Americans and
Americans are going to eat!"

Everyone I spoke with about the response from the federal government wasn’t
surprised by the delay. One lady told me, "You’re a fool if you are waiting
for George Bush to rescue some poor black folks."

After lunch, I helped coordinate the live shots and then I went over to the
employment security commission office. A number of local businesses had
offered to get people jobs and even help them find places to stay and rides
to work. Several people were explaining their skills and the ones who got
jobs seemed fine with the idea of staying in Raleigh. One man told me that a
family in Wake Forest had taken in 20 folks in one house.

After that, I went to the FEMA line. It was actually the FEMA/HUD/DMV and VA
line. The first thing they needed to do was get people some official
identification. The ID badges we made for them weren’t going to be much good
when they needed to cash a check.

Initially, they passed out numbers and would call people over an intercom.
"Numbers 1-25 can now visit the FEMA office." But then buses started
arriving. Turns out that Wal-Mart was giving away $100 gift cards too and
had chartered buses to take people to a store so they could get supplies.
One little old lady wearing a "NEW ORLEANS!!" hat kept asking me, "Is this
the bus that takes people to Wal-Mart?" At some point, people realized that
FEMA was more important than Wal-Mart…so they didn’t want to get out of
line. And then people realized that the buses going to Wal-Mart weren’t
going to be going all day…and then people returning from Wal-Mart figured
they had a right to be in line.

Argh.

I quickly called the Joint Operations Office and told them what was going
on. They quickly made arrangements for another day of Wal-Mart trips for the
rest of the people (Wal-Mart had assumed that everyone had gotten a chance
to go). How they are going to figure out who went today and who gets to go
tomorrow ought to  be interesting. Next, the number system for the FEMA line
was abandoned. Next in line was next in line. Arguments were quickly settled
though…not by cops or
workers, but by the evacuees themselves. "Calm down brother….ain’t like
you got somewhere to be."

There was an 80 year old woman in line who couldn’t stand for very long. A
young lady who had lived in the 9th Ward asked me if I’d get a chair. We
both took  turns moving the chair down the line as it advanced. We started
talking about politics. I gave my theory that the feds were being as
inefficient as they possibly could so they could finally throw up their
hands and say, "Fuck it. Just scrap the system." I told my stories about
going through Hurricanes Fran and Floyd. The young lady and the old lady
told me their hurricane stories as well. The old lady had been at a nursing
home and the nuns, she said, split once the floodwaters came. She said she
watched one lady just give up and die, choosing to drown rather than try and
escape. At this point, she started to cry and we tried to comfort her. I
mentioned that there were some grief counselors here and she ought to talk
to them.

"I don’t have time for grief," she said. She said she had just lost
everything. She had lived in New Orleans her whole life. All of her family
had lived there their entire life. Her friends and community and church were
there and now it was gone.
Then she got *pissed.*

"God’s going to get George Bush. He’s got to."

I personally don’t believe in God, however, if there IS one, I’d like to
second her motion.

That was the end of my shift and it was time for me to go. As I was leaving,
I bumped into my australian friend. An international line was set up and he
had gotten through to his mother and father. He had a note that he was
getting ready to give to someone to hand to me.

"Tell [noah] that I talked to my mom and dad and I’m alright."