Hurricane Wilma - Red Cross DR661

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My experience: a personal narrative, not a disaster-relief how-to

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Map: Belle Glade and area, by MapQuest

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Newspaper article: Emily Minor in the Palm Beach Post

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Photo set 1: Downloadable zip file - about 6mb

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Photo set 2: Downloadable zip file - about 6mb

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Photo set 3: Downloadable zip file - about 6mb

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Photo set 4: Downloadable zip file - about 6mb

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Photo set 5: Downloadable zip file - about 6mb

I recently worked in Florida for three weeks under Red Cross auspices helping Hurricane Wilma victims.  You can read my story, and view a collection of pictures: Wilma_1, Wilma_2, Wilma_3, Wilma_4 and Wilma_5.  The deployment starts in Orlando, then Miami, then a short assignment at Stuart, and the remainder of our time at Belle Glade with one day off in Palm Beach.

In Red Cross we don't take advantage of the people we serve, and we avoid making them feel any more victimized than they already do, so we don't take pictures of them or of their homes.  There are a few pictures here of public or commercial structures, but no shots of the poeple we were helping.  If you want an album of destruction, this is the wrong place.

These pictures mostly show the people I worked with and how we operated.  It includes pictures of the North Carolina Baptist organization that does our cooking - an incredible group of people, distinguishable here by yellow caps.  This collection is a family album, of a family we built from scratch while in a war zone.  We were in the Children's Crusade, and grew up fast.

The pace is incredible, and most of the time there is no time for taking snapshots.  Often the pictures are of the dinners where we could take a breather and maybe have a beer.  If it looks like we spent the time partying, that's an artifact of the hectic pace, rather than a real indication of what was happening.  If it looks like we spent the time smiling, if's because tears are usually private.  It will take some time for each of us to to understand what happened down there.

As an indication of how thin we were stretched, look at image 267 and count the clipboards.  We had four clipboards, one per truck, and were trying to feed hungry people in the Belle Glade area with just 8 people delivering out of rented panel trucks.  Compare that to number 402, when we got a flood of people from other kitchens, nine ERV (Emergency Response Vehicles) and we finally got a day off.

There are no captions yet.  I would like to have the names of all people shown, and (when and if I get around to it) that would be a separate downloadable file.  Feel free to email me with names of anyone here, and give the picture name they are in, and I'll start compiling the list.  Some of them I already have.  If you tell me their name in one picture, that's enough.

Due to space limits at my ftp site, I have edited the original collection of about 560 pictures down to 250.  Contact me if you want more.  I have tried to keep at least one picture of each recognizable person.