Hurricane Ike

Alright, I've been on the job for a week now. Before I get to that, however, I'm going to talk about my team's trip to Oak Island, TX (which is not an island...). We drove over there with our project sponsor so that we could fill out some intake forms in person as well as see some hurricane devastation first-hand. It was really crazy to see what the hurricane did to this small town... There were tons of homes that were completely destroyed. Often you'd simply see a FEMA trailer sitting at the end of a driveway. At first you don't make the connection... Usually when you see that, it means the entire house was ripped up and taken elsewhere by either wind or water.

So yeah, it was pretty sad to see the scattered remnants of an entire zip code... Here are some pictures of Oak Island and (finally) a movie for you as well. Don't expect premium entertainment though. It's 45 seconds of wreckage. I let it go that long simply to try to capture the amount of debris that used to be "house" and is now "stuff". Of course this is just one short stretch of road among many...


Above: Here is the video.

Above: Not really comfortable anymore.

Above: Not really livable anymore.

Above: Not really there anymore. Yes, that was a house.

Above: That's pretty straightforward.

Above: My TL Erin getting mobbed by dogs. There are tons of pets and stray dogs just roaming around the gulf.

According to Wikipedia, 90% of Oak Island's homes were left inhabitable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island,_Texas). Here is an article about Oak Island too: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/092108dntexoakislandike.187ff9a.html

Needless to say, there is a lot to be done down here. My team, Silver One, is working with Catholic Charities of Southeast Texas. I mentioned this before, but keep in mind that we don't do religious work and we aren't allowed to fundraise or anything. Basically, we're providing the administrative work needed to run the hurricane aid programs that they provide. They work with thousands of people, assessing their needs and giving them money to keep them going. We don't just serve Oak Island - we serve several counties!

We get tons of calls every day (and about 30-40 voicemails overnight) and we have to call each household back and fill out forms about those families. I've also been doing a lot of database work to keep all of the information organized. The work is definitely not the outdoor, physical work that I had hoped for, but it's worth it. It's really interesting to hear the families' stories about what happened to them and it makes the monotonous work worthwhile. Also, our sponsors are very nice people and they are definitely grateful for our work. Considering many teams work 60 hours per week, we're lucky that we're only working a simple 8-5. So yeah, this is my job until December 15 (I think). As we progress through the project, however, we'll probably get more and more opportunities to actually go out to the communities and talk with people, which should be more interesting. Here are some teamies "in action", if you can call it that:

Above: Katie making the phones look a lot more fun than they really are.

Above: Sarah making databasing look a lot more fun than it really is.

Oh and lastly, I have a fun story. We're in eastern Texas, which is not the Texas that you Yankees are probably imagining. There are no Tumbleweeds (though we did see plenty on the way here). I'm basically right on the border of Louisiana so the climate here is more like that. It's been raining a lot. In fact, it rained so much that we got stuck in the mud on our way out of the parking lot the other day. We tried all sorts of techniques but could not move. Finally we got help from a truck full of other Camp Orange residents. We tethered onto their truck and their back wheels sprayed mud all over the front of our treasured 15P as it pulled it out. This is what it looked like after a bit of cleaning:

Above: Our beloved 15P. At least it's intimidating now. If you see this baby on the road, you're probably going to get out of the way.

Alright, time for sleep. It's super late for me already. I don't have work tomorrow, but most of my team is planning to do an Independent Service Project (ISP) at a charity concert in Beaumont (the "bigger city" nearby).

Good night and thanks for reading!

-Scott

Orange County (Texas...)

That's right, I'm now living in Orange County, Texas. So much has happened... Originally we thought we were going to be living at Camp Tarmac in Galveston, but now we're here at Camp Orange instead. Orange County borders Louisiana and has many of registered hurricane victims as well. In contrast to Camp Tarmac, which has lots of AmeriCorps teams, this one is a bit new and doesn't have many. At first I was a bit unhappy about that, but I'm definitely happy with Camp Orange now that I'm here.

But first I'll tell you where I've been the past few days. The first day of our road trip brought us to Kingman, Arizona where I got sick and felt horrible. Our next stop was in Las Cruses, New Mexico, which was probably a lot more fun. Then we settled in Austin, Texas for two nights where we registered with FEMA and trained with them for a bit. At night we went out on 6th street, which was a blast. There's so much really good free music in Austin... It was basically a bunch of really talented people performing just for me. I don't have any pictures of that, unfortunately, because I didn't want to bother lugging my camera all around downtown Austin. Most of the driving was through desert, which was cool and boring at the same time (figure that)... Here's a map of our trip (though we took a more sensible route between Austin and Houston):



This whole road trip was taken with Silver Two. We drove in a convoy and we stayed in the same hotel rooms. We went out with them at night and went swimming in the hotel pools. All in all, Silver Two was awesome and we had lots of fun together. It was great waking up in new and interesting places all the time. Too bad they're going to Camp Tarmac (or at least for now)... We actually saw a lot of friends from CTI in Austin. Many of them are working at the FEMA Joint Field Office (which is a huge office in a converted J.C. Penny) talking on the phone with hurricane victims and figuring out what the government can give them. It was really interesting to see the JFO - it was amazing in certain unexpected ways. Speaking to my friends from CTI, I've gathered that this is a pretty boring job and they work ten-hour days, six days a week! Still, the upside, for them, is that they get to live in Austin in really nice extended stay hotels for the whole round.

So back to Camp Orange... Things are pretty awesome here, despite that fact that it's just a volunteer camp set up in huge tents. The camp is set up for far more people than there are actually here, so we have tons of room and we can each take up as many cots and as much space as we want. There's laundry, good food, supplies, electricity, wireless internet and much more. The MWR (Morale, Wellness and Recreation) Tent is pretty awesome too. It has really nice couches and big TVs. Here are some pictures from the camp that I just took tonight:

Above: My monster of a tent

Above: The MWR Tent

Above: The MWR Tent again

Above: Teamies in the MWR Tent

Also, Gold Six is staying here! Some of my friends from CTI are on that team, which is great. Until we arrived, they were the only younger group of people around, so they were pretty excited tonight. They even made us this saweeet welcome poster:

I suppose it's possible that other AmeriCorps teams show up here later, but there's been no word of that so I'm assuming it's just going to be us two. It'll be nice getting to know Gold Six for the time that we're here. We should be here for about 5-6 weeks which will bring us right up to our winter break, where we'll transition back in Sacramento.

I have tomorrow off, so hopefully I'll just be relaxing and having some fun with my team. On Monday we finally meet our round one sponsors! They're a faith-based community organization, but they are not allowed to make AmeriCorps members do anything religious. So although they're Christian, they cannot make us participate in religious ceremonies, nor can they assign us work that progresses Christianity. In other words, though I'm not sure of my exact job description, I know that I will be working toward helping Texas families get back on their feet after the hurricane. My whole team is quite excited about this and we can't wait to get out there and start. We're prepared for some tough work and some long hours.

I think that's all I've got for you tonight. I feel like I've explained a lot with this post. Let me know if you've got any questions! Also, I'd like to know what all of you have been up to this past month, so don't be afraid to comment or e-mail me.

Thanks for reading!

-Scott

Bye Bye, CTI

EDIT: I forgot to post these pictures, so now I'm going to put them in before the rest of the entry:

Above: Silver One at Camp Mendocino in front of a huge redwood!

Above: Team stuff at camp Mendocino.

Above: More team stuff.

Above: Kelsey and me after a bunch of us played in the mud!

Settle in for a long one. First I'm going to write a bit about what I've been doing since my last post (I know some of you have been nagging me to update) and then I'm going to write a bit about my upcoming spike (a spike is a project away from campus). So I've been quite busy. My team, Silver One, has been doing all sorts of things to prepare for Induction, which is the end of Corps Training Institute (CTI), when we become full AmeriCorps members. Before each project, teams have to prepare a briefing presentation to give to staff that explains in detail what they'll be doing and what preparations they've made. Silver One doesn't know exactly what we'll be doing, but I'll get to that later. My job for this briefing was to talk about my team position (Photojournalist) for a bit and provide a team brochure which will be given to project sponsors in order to introduce our team to them and highlight our experience and strengths.

Aside from that, we've still had trainings nearly every day. Some of these trainings were with the Red Cross, and now I'm First Aid and CPR trained by them. We also did Disaster Relief training with them, which we will probably put to good use shortly. And lastly, we've been doing service. We've been working alongside other teams to help construct community gardens around Sacramento. These gardens are primarily made for the Sacramento youth and elderly. Specifically, school children get to grow their own plants. This is used as an alternate form of education and it also teaches the Sacramento kids about healthy eating and provides some of that food to them.

I have also been doing some Independent Service Projects (ISPs). The first one I did was right in front of the California State Capitol Building. They had a Family Fun Day there (where they had thousands more guests than they expected) and I and several friends went to help with the clean-up and take-down of the whole event. Afterwards, we walked around downtown Sacramento a bit and watched some crazy guy yell random things at the top of his lungs on the sidewalk.

The second ISP that I did happened just last night. McClellan Air Force Base is right within a neighborhood outside of Sacramento called North Highlands. The community center here had a halloween event where they made up a big haunted house for the kids. They also had a bunch of games with candy prizes set up. I went with about twenty others to go and help with the clean-up and take-down again. We got there a bit early, so I got to help run the event too. It was fun - I mean, where else can you watch a little kid reach into what he thinks is a bowl of human eyeballs?

Here are some more pictures from CTI:

Above: Silver 1 and Green 5 working on the garden.

Above: Katie and Lawrence picking weeds.

Above: Finishing up.

Above: Lindsey.

Above: Katie.

Above: Sarah and Katie.

Above: Family Fun Day.

Above: Hanging around after work.


Above: Us in front of the capitol.

Above: At the nearby Thai place. Erin, Lindsey, Dayna, Me, Zack.

So that's what I've been up to. Now for my upcoming spike. Let me try to get this straight... First, we were told that we would be going to Austin, TX in order to work for FEMA, and that they might send us elsewhere in Texas. Since then, we were told that we would be working for Impact Ministries, a non-denominational organization that helps the hurricane victims get back on their feet. Working for them would have been interesting. We would have most likely been in the Galveston area working outdoors. Just as Silver One was prepared for that project, we were informed that we're no longer working for Impact Ministries. Now we're working for someone else, but we don't know whom. We still know we won't be in Austin with the other teams (a bunch of teams from all campuses are working office jobs at the FEMA headquarters in Austin. They're living in extended stay hotels the entire time, which is pretty nice). So, again, it's up in the air and we don't know where we'll be. It seems like we're simply waiting for FEMA to allocate us. I, personally, like the uncertainty. I think it's fun. We leave Tuesday, and once I know what I'm doing I'll let you know.

The first teams are leaving for their spikes today and teams will be leaving for the next week. As excited as I am to leave, I am pretty sad that CTI is ending. I had such a great time here and I've made so many friends who are now scattering around the map. I'm very thankful that I like my team, at least. It's becoming clear that from now on, they're going to be the only thing in my life that will remain relatively constant.

So that's all for now. Thanks for reading!
-Scott

P.S. It rained for the first time here the other night. Oh, and tomorrow I'm doing an ISP - I'm helping to run a 8.5 mi./3.5 mi. race.