It’s that time of the year when New Times offers its annual appreciation to the many thousands of local volunteers who give up so much of their time to worthy causes.
This past year was notable for its horrendous disasters, so we are unveiling something different — a tribute to ten Central Coast residents who hurriedly packed up and headed off to the Gulf Coast and points beyond to aid and assist all those affected and afflicted by Katrina, Rita, Wilma and even the devastating tsunami of 2004.
We would like to acknowledge their caring and courage during tough times. —King Harris
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The road to New Orleans
Hummers may have a bad rap, but it’s impossible to deny that the tough four-wheel-drive vehicles are capable of handling certain situations that other cars simply cannot. When the hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast, San Luis Obispo plumber Dave Smee and his Hummer were ready to help.
When he arrived in Baton Rouge following Katrina’s devastation, Smee and other members of Hummer Owners Prepared for Emergencies (HOPE) stayed with a Hummer dealer who set up accommodations for them. Equipped with GPS and laptop computers, Smee and at least 12 other Hummer owners put Red Cross magnets on the sides of their vehicles and heeded the call.
Smee spent a week in New Orleans ferrying doctors and nurses into hard-to-reach places and aiding survey crews charged with assessing the damage in The Big Easy, block-by-block, house-by-house. “It was very eerie,� he recalled. “It reminded me of something out of a science-fiction movie where everyone had been abducted.�
Occasionally Smee, in his red H1, encountered National Guardsmen in their green military Humvees. He joked with them, and even let one take his Hummer for a spin.
After returning to SLO from his September sojourn in Louisiana, Smee still felt the need to volunteer, so he signed up with the Red Cross and returned to Baton Rouge, this time without his Hummer.
Smee, who does emergency plumbing work and is on-call for the SLO County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team, said he’s fortunate to have his own business and make his own hours, but even independence comes with a price. “I ran the risk of losing customers, I guess,� he shrugged, “but it’s one of those things you just do because you know it’s the right thing to do.� ?
—John Peabody
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Off to Alabama
As news of the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Katrina flooded the airwaves, Andrea Pond moved fast to join the relief effort.
Pond, 46, the wife of a Morro Bay firefighter and mother of two school-age children, had spent the past few years caring for her terminally ill sister. “It was one of those things. I was glued to the television watching Katrina,� Pond said. “I really felt I needed to do something with meaning.�
Six days after she finished the Red Cross’s accelerated disaster-training class, she found herself stepping off a plane in Montgomery, Ala. She had handled disasters during her time as a volunteer firefighter and as an EMT with the California Department of Forestry, but the destruction left by Katrina was something different. “I thought my experience with firestorms would prepare me,� she said, “but what I was not prepared for was all the debris, downed power lines, cars tumbled into oval shapes, and mattresses hanging from treetops.�
Nights were spent in an elementary school with no electricity or running water, and amid the hot, muggy air, which intensified the rancid odors of decay and decomposition. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m not taking my clothes home, I’ll just leave them here,’� Pond said. “One of the hardest things was the biting flies and all the insects.�
The group started by going door-to-door offering help, dressing wounds and providing much-needed resource information. “I learned a lot,� Pond said. “I learned to honor where the person was at the moment, anger or disbelief. I just let them talk.�
During the two weeks Pond volunteered in Mississippi, she worked 12- to14-hour days, seven days a week. “We were lucky if we got five hours sleep,� she recounted. “I met great people at night. We would share information and support one another.�
Back home, neighbors pitched in to help her husband, Michael Pond, take care of their two children, 15-year-old Garrett and 11-year-old Michelle.
“My time in Mississippi definitely changed me,� Pond said. “I now count my blessings. I had been grieving the loss of my sister, though I am now more accepting.� ?
—Karen Velie
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Bakersfield bound
When Venus Rivera first volunteered for the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina hit, she had no idea she would be most needed in Bakersfield. She also had no idea how much her time working at the Red Cross call center there would affect her life. In fact, it gave her new direction: she has since completed a disaster training course and intends to volunteer for future disaster-relief efforts. “This was my first DR [disaster relief]. I’m totally hooked,� Rivera noted.
When Katrina hit, 25-year-old Rivera was working as a substitute teacher and as a dispatcher for the San Luis Obispo Police Department. She quit the dispatch job and helped out in the SLO Red Cross office for two weeks, where she learned the organization’s computer system and how to manage communications. Those were the very skills needed at the call center in Bakersfield.
Although she was ready to go to Louisiana, the Red Cross asked if she would volunteer in Bakersfield, a destination many volunteers had declined to accept. “I said, ‘If that’s where they need me, I’ll go.’� So Rivera headed to the Central Valley, where Red Cross volunteers supervised a group of employees charged with answering phone calls from hurricane victims in need of financial assistance.
Because Rivera was familiar with the computer system, she quickly became what she calls a “supervisor’s supervisor.� At the call center, she explained, “there was a constant hum of people talking.� She said she worked with some of the most dedicated Red Cross volunteers and felt especially proud to be able to instantly help someone, even if that victim was far away.
Most of the calls received at the Bakersfield call center were negative, she said, and the call center was charged with evaluating a lot of fraud cases: “I was called every name in the book.� But knowing that the victims in the Gulf region had it much worse than she did put it all in perspective. “I’m so glad I didn’t turn this down,� said Rivera, who now hopes to join the local disaster-action team. ?
—John Peabody
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The Astrodome and beyond
The winds from Hurricane Katrina had just stopped howling when 66-year-old Vi Sheldon headed to the Gulf Coast to assist victims of the storm. Assigned to support services at the Astrodome shelter in Houston, Texas, Sheldon worked hands-on with victims, providing information and keeping track of their whereabouts. Some 20,000 New Orleans evacuees were crammed into the Astrodome before the city opened more shelters.
“Unless you saw it with your own eyes, you can’t imagine the size of the relief effort,� Sheldon recalled. “For most of the people I dealt with, there was nothing to go back to.�
After two weeks assisting the rattled refugees, the Red Cross was forced by Hurricane Rita to evacuate the Astrodome. Sheldon helped survivors of Katrina find new living quarters, then headed back to her home in Arroyo Grande. “I was home for 10 days when I called and said I was ready to go out again,� she said. “They sent me right out.�
As a retired accounting supervisor with the City of San Luis Obispo, Sheldon brought much-needed financial experience to her Red Cross volunteer work. On her second mission, she flew to Montgomery, Ala., where she was confronted with mountains of boxes of payment forms to process. She and about 300 fellow volunteers managed to work their way through the forms in a little over three weeks.
“The other volunteers were really neat people,� Sheldon said. “When I first went, I thought I was too old, but most of the volunteers were in their 70s. They have a lifetime of experiences and great skills to bring to the table. This was the first time I volunteered with the Red Cross. I enjoyed it very much and I plan to continue to volunteer.�
Before returning home, Sheldon watched as volunteers packed and sent equipment to Florida for the next hurricane. “I felt pretty worthwhile doing something for people that could be me,� she said. “We could have a devastating earthquake on the Central Coast.� ?
—Karen Velie
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Three states and a changed life
Unlike many of the citizen volunteers who took time off from their regular schedules to lend a hand during the myriad disasters last year, Virginia Brady actually quit her job and ended up spending more than 40 days helping the Red Cross after hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. “I was so struck by the images [of Katrina], I felt I had to do more,� Brady said.
She deployed twice and assisted in Texas, Oklahoma and Florida. Even though she was a first-time volunteer, Brady learned fast and quickly took on major responsibilities, working as a shift manager at a shelter, an assistant shelter manager, then as a full-time shelter manager, a complicated task normally reserved for trained disaster veterans. “It was fabulous working with the clients,� Brady recalled. “I was able to develop relationships and to actually help in the process of their recovery. To see and experience and help really gave me an appreciation for people’s ability to cope. We were there to feed and shelter the clients, treat them with respect, get them in contact with services they need for recovery.�
She also learned that storm victims commonly need more than mere food and shelter. Often, she found, the most important thing she could do was to sit and listen to evacuees’ troubles, to lend a shoulder and an ear, to shed tears with them.
The experience was life-changing for Brady. She described the new friends she made in the most trying circumstances. She also is looking forward to more Red Cross training. (Today she is qualified to drive emergency response vehicles, the trucks that dash into disaster areas with food, water and clean-up kits.) “I had a totally positive experience,� she said. “I will have a lifelong relationship with the Red Cross.� ?
—Christopher Gardner
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High tech and humbled
As the plane carrying Velanche Stewart descended into the Gulf Coast and he began to make out rooftops covered with blue tarps, washed-out roads, and a destroyed pier, he explained, “I began to realize I wasn’t in my comfort zone anymore. That sight is etched in my mind.�
The decision to volunteer for Red Cross disaster relief in the Gulf Coast evolved slowly for Stewart who, like many who joined the Red Cross, had never volunteered before.
“In a roundabout way, I felt that this was an event, a disaster, that was bigger than anything we’ve seen, next to the tsunami in Asia,� explained the information technology consultant for Cal Poly’s College of Liberal Arts. “I’ve always wanted to help in a disaster but never thought of actually doing so until this came. I was inspired by a couple of things: the article in New Times about the two staff members [Christopher Gardner and Alex Zuniga] who went as well as others who went; and finally because the university offered to provide assistance to employees who wanted to go and help. I thought it was a way to give back, better than just writing a check. I decided it was an opportunity I should seize.�
Stewart was made part of the Rapid Technology Team (a Red Cross group in charge of computer, cellular, satellite, and radio equipment), and was flown into Gulf Port, Biloxi, Mississippi. Though he spent most of his time keeping communications going, his most rewarding moment came one day when he was asked to join a group going out in an emergency vehicle to serve lunch to survivors.
“Seeing the damage all around me and the living conditions of the people, I was struck by how the people emotionally reacted to the disaster — everything from resignation to togetherness. It made me feel humble and really brought things home for me, like what’s important in life when everything you have is taken from you. I would absolutely volunteer again.� ?
— Glen Starkey
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Saving the survivors
While Charlie Fruit was in Texas, a little girl approached him for help. Her family had ridden out Hurricane Rita in their car, in the ruins of a gas station. Fruit’s Red Cross team provided them with food and water, and the girl asked where Fruit was from. When he answered, she stopped in her tracks.
“You came all the way here?� she asked in shock. Though she didn’t say it, she was really asking why he came so far to help the destitute survivors of the hurricane.
His answer? He had to.
Fruit is no stranger to volunteering — he serves on the board of People’s Self-Help Housing, a local charity that assists with low-income residences — and he’s also familiar with destruction. The Vietnam War veteran and former EMT serves as senior vice president and manager of the Community Development Department at Coast National Bank, but he left the job for three brutal, intense weeks with the Red Cross recovery effort in Texas. It was his first time with the organization, and it soon became a trial by fire; in late September, he arrived in San Antonio and immediately volunteered for the dangerous emergency response team. Armed with a pack of survival gear, he and the team were led to Beaumont, Texas, to save the survivors there. It was a heroic start to an arduous mission.
“We went down with police escort, driving U-Haul-sized trucks of food and water. We hand-loaded those trucks and fed people out of them,� he said. This often entailed a 90-mile drive back to the Red Cross supply center in Houston, an eerie trip along roads littered with signs for nonexistent streets, huge power poles “bent like clay,� and thousands of abandoned cars.
Fruit and his fellow novice volunteers learned quickly as they searched for survivors. “The people who had cars and gas had evacuated already, which meant the remaining people were poor,� said Fruit. “And we couldn’t get to all the areas.�
One image that lingers with him is a recovery search into a decrepit motel/housing complex in tiny Parkdale Mall, Texas. The rooms, which he said had the “stench of death� from bodies and waste matter, housed a group of people who had refused to evacuate before the storm hit. Fruit incredulously asked why, and the most talkative survivor explained that he was the richest man in the complex — if he left his home, looters would steal his possessions. If he went with the recovery team, he’d be left in a city far away, with no means to survive and no way to come home. That man’s possessions, the ones he risked his life for, were a toaster, a microwave, and a small refrigerator.
“Poor here is rich there,� Fruit said somberly. “I’ve been in third-world countries, and that is what it felt like.�
Those three weeks in devastated Texas were a frustrating but rewarding time for Fruit, who is now enrolling in further Red Cross training. He remembers “more hugs than I’ve ever received in my life� and the immense generosity of people who had lost everything. But it has also made him rigidly aware of his own survival; he now packs emergency supplies in his cars, and stocks extra food and drinks for rough times. It can happen here.
“One of the lessons I came home with was that, in the event of a major disaster here, people need to understand that it may take a week to 10 days for help to reach us,� he said. “We need to have more than a few days’ supplies, and be able to live on our own for some time. We need to take this seriously and be prepared.� ?
—Stacey Anderson
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Stepping up to the plate
Judy Kessler’s connection with Mother Earth is an inheritance from her ancestors. The desire to help those in need, however, is all her own.
“It’s my world, and I want to be a part of it,� Kessler explained. “The most important thing is the relationship between human being and human being. A big part of who I am is being able to help the community.�
Kessler had never volunteered before, but she spent five intense weeks helping the survivors of Hurricane Rita in Texas and Hurricane Wilma in Florida. The plan was initially for a shorter stint — she spent two weeks with the Red Cross in Jasper, Texas, braving the “war zone� of felled trees and ruined landscape to provide survivors with food and water. “I’ve never seen so many overturned trees, and there was no electricity,� she said. During that time, she was emotionally moved by the plight of the people, and seized another opportunity when the Red Cross asked her to become an Emergency Response Vehicle driver and drive a truck to Homestead, Florida.
“In Texas, we provided over 220,000 meals in 20 days. People lined up for miles,� she said. “I wanted to do more. These people lost so much and were willing to help each other. They showed the spirit of the human being.�
Kessler also gave out food and supplies in Homestead, and provided an ear for the many stories of the survivors. One tale in particular stuck with her: a woman who lost her home in the hurricane, all her possessions, and then her husband, who — after they were stranded and poor —committed suicide.
“How devastating it is to lose it all,� said Kessler, a retired teacher. “I couldn’t imagine how heartbroken this person was, with all she had lost and her personal tragedy. It really touched me, but I was humbled to have been in the presence of people who worked as hard as I did and whose lives changed.�
Kessler’s interest in the planet stems from her family’s history. She is Lakota Indian, and performs ceremonial rituals as well as teaching Indian culture. (Her son, Donovan, also passes on their knowledge through his job in the Peace Corps; he currently teaches with the group in Bolivia.) Kessler’s involvement in the California Indian Education Association promotes awareness and helps send underprivileged children to college.
“Because of my involvement [with the tribe], I believe that life is to be used as a giveaway. It should be used to help others, and these priorities are important,� she said. “If someone is in dire straits, we must step up to the plate and help.�
Kessler’s history and passion for her culture led her to Texas and Florida, and now it guides her to further preparation. She is currently enlisting in more extensive Red Cross training, so she can understand how to prepare for another natural disaster and, if necessary, return to the sites of such damage. As she acknowledges, many of these situations have happened recently – and as she believes, it is a natural progression.
“I look at these events as a natural progression of the earth’s process,� she said. “As society grows, we build in unsafe areas. We believe we dominate this earth, not that we are part of it, and it would be good to step back and be more respectful to Mother Earth. We have a relationship with it; we do not control it, and we need to come into that agreement with respect.� ?
—Stacey Anderson
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Making a difference
When Paul Humphreys volunteered for the Red Cross, it wasn’t to become a hero, or to gain public recognition for his actions. Like so many people who donated their time to the hurricane relief effort, it just seemed like he didn’t really have any other choice.
“As I watched the situation unfold in the first few days after Katrina hit, I felt I couldn’t just throw a donation at this problem and forget about it,� he explained. “I felt I had to be a part of it.�
So he signed up, agreeing to take two weeks off work as a materials control manager in Paso Robles to lend a hand to the enormous relief effort taking place in the South. He figured he’d be working in Louisiana or Mississippi, somewhere in the heart of Hurricane Katrina’s destructive path. But then Rita hit, further devastating the region and diverting new volunteers to other areas. By the time Humphreys was called for deployment, the Gulf Coast was hit by its third category-five storm in less than two months. Wilma swept through the southern tip of Florida and wreaked havoc on the frail coastal landscape, wiping out neighborhoods and destroying power lines with its 100-mile-an-hour winds. Humphreys found himself in Miami, where the city’s famed fashionable elite and exotic nightlife were replaced with hungry, storm-weary victims and 17-hour work days.
He arrived three days after Wilma, and it was apparent that the experienced volunteers and Red Cross staff members were spread thin by so many back-to-back disasters. Yet in spite of the initial chaos and confusion, he said he was quickly impressed by the professionalism of the operation. Seeing so many people work together under such dire circumstances made it easy for him to find his footing in his new role as a relief worker.
Humphreys was part of a logistics group, and he and his fellow volunteers delivered emergency supplies to shelters, first aid centers, and kitchens, acting as a band-aid until larger shipments of goods could be brought in to heavily damaged areas. “I wasn’t pulling babies out of burning blazes,� he said, as he described the ordinariness of his volunteer work routine. “But I was one of many people doing little things, and from one day to the next you could see progress. Things were happening as a result of our efforts.�
People had drinking water. Babies had formula. Nurses smiled with relief when they saw the Red Cross vehicles pull up with much-needed supplies. For Humphreys, it was seeing how he made a difference in the lives of so many people that made his experience so extraordinary.
“It only takes one desperate person to look you in the eyes and say ‘thank you’ to make it all seem worthwhile,� he said, adding that no one moment stood out for him in this experience; it was wholly and completely amazing. “It’s incredible to see that you’re actually making a difference,� he said, “instead of just making a living.�
There was little opportunity to miss home during his busy schedule down south, though Humphreys admitted that it was good to be back in California, with his wife and his job and his many creature comforts. Still, he said, he loved his time as a volunteer and he’d gladly do it all again in a heartbeat. ?
—Alice Moss
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Hit by the tsunami
When a giant tsunami rocked Southeast Asia in late 2004, Lori Atwater was in the midst of construction plans for her church’s new building. But Atwater, a construction manager, was immediately compelled to do something more meaningful with her life. “When that tsunami hit, I felt like it hit me,� she said, recounting the moment that changed the direction of her life forever.
She dropped everything to coordinate and lead a group of eight church members to Thailand, where they spent part of February and March volunteering their various professional skills to help guide locals through the long process of recovery. The experience transformed her, and a few months later, she found herself in Indonesia, where the damage was so devastating that she recalled thinking, “Thailand was a piece of cake.�
Indonesia suffered the bulk of the wave’s destruction, with entire villages and roads left in total ruin. There was so much debris that any hopes of rebuilding were stalled by the immediate and daunting task of cleaning up. A self-proclaimed facilitator, Atwater used her work experience and professional connections to help mobilize a groundbreaking cleanup proposal that eventually gained the support of the UN Development Project. The three-year plan involves reprocessing wood, cement, plastic, and brick left over from the disaster, and using the recycled materials for future building projects and for creating new industry. Not only will it help shave millions of dollars off recovery costs by reducing the need for imported goods, but it will also provide over 100 jobs to a severely weakened workforce. “We showed up thinking we’d be building, but that was impossible,� she explained. “We had to reinvent a different way of doing things.�
Atwater was so moved by her experiences in Southeast Asia that this past fall she coordinated another volunteer group to go to Malawi during the famine season, educating locals about sustainable agriculture and HIV/AIDS. Eventually, she’d like to create a program to take teams of professionals on short volunteer stints. “Kind of like vacations with a purpose,� she joked. The idea is to give people a taste of what they’re really capable of, because “when you see how to apply your skills and education to help people in need, your whole world changes.�
With the exception of a couple of Girl Scout excursions and a group trip overseas, Atwater hadn’t done much volunteer work until this year. Now, she said, she’ll be doing it for the rest of her life. A devout Christian, she gives credit to her faith for opening the door to this new phase in her life, and though she loves the Central Coast, the 24-year resident has been restless since she returned in November. She plans to go back to Indonesia, and she’s also sending out proposals for other development projects in needy areas. It’s clear she’s anxious to get back to the work of volunteering. “I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone right now,� she said. “I’m just waiting for the next door to open.� ?
—Alice Moss