Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Shelter In The Storm

We arrived at 10:00 this morning at Red Cross headquarters. They sent us to an orientation class. After we identified ourselves as health care workers, we were "fast tracked" in regards to assignments.

It took two hours to get us an assignment--the Red Cross headquarters were less than organized chaos. The nor'easter was spooking everyone. The Weather Channel is calling this storm Athena:

Snow Forecast

We're now expecting six inches, if this is to be believed.

Five minutes after we left the headquarters, the Red Cross issued a travel ban, but we were already on the road, and honestly it wasn't bad yet.

The shelter Tanya and I arrived at had on nurse who'd been on for at least 24 hours. She'd been promised an EMT the night before who never arrived.

So, it seems that Tanya and I are going to be here through tomorrow evening. I'm working 12:00 to 8:00. Tanya worked 4:00PM-8:00PM and will work 8:00AM-8:00PM. In all likelyhood I will work tomorrow from 8PM to 8AM.

We took our supplies to the Occupy drop point because they seem to be the ones who are doing the best job distributing things. Here's what was bought:




Gas lines were back again today and many stations said "No gas".

 The Governor Christi and Mayor Bloomburg put out travel warnings, asking people to get off the roads by 4:00. We passed this sign on the way.

So here's us in our vests:








Tanya is better at taking pictures than I am.

It may be that we will see an influx of residents tonight or tomorrow. Or perhaps not. We'll see.

Things are really difficult down here. Everyone seems to be waiting for the locusts and pestilence along  with the governor.

One thing that we're expecting is that people who can no longer afford to stay in hotels will have to come to the shelters, as perhaps, people who've already been ten days without heat.

We're seeing utility companies from all over, but its tough to work in this stuff.


3 comments:

Morgan said...

Thank you both so much for this work. Thank you for being there. Sending you lots of love and loads of empathy. (from another DSHR Red Crosser)

Ceredwyn said...

Thank you so much, Stasa.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for helping my state.

My parents got power back mid-late afternoon today, after 10 days. They said they got 6" of snow.