fwd: disaster update
Sep. 6th, 2005 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7More from Katy's mother-in-law, Mary Bryant, in Baton Rouge.
From: "Mary Bryant Smith"
To: Adam Smith, Kathleen Smith, John & Chris Kelly
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 20:37:15 +0000
Subject: disaster update
Hi Everyone, My internet is still down from the storm at home. Im getting this update off at school during my off hour. We are still just fine, although life as we knew it may never be quite the same. Right after I wrote on Thurs. we got word that the mall next door and the mall in Gonzales,15 minutes away were being looted. We went to lockdown and it was a little scary. Turns out that the mall next down was fine but the other one did have trouble. Rumors were flying like crazy, most untrue. School did get cancelled for Fri. because things were so unsettled. Over the weekend we worked some down at the church. We have taken in 700 refugees. All regular stuff except Sunday morning services have been suspended indefinitely because the 700 are living in the gym and classrooms. Grandmother is of course a one-woman Mother Teresa encouragement committee-, hugging babies, going out and buying air mattresses,visiting with every sad face she sees. Ive been bringing clothes and helping sort thru donations(there are so many ). There is a nurses station, a committee to help reunite families, a group of men constructing makeshift showers--you name it. Its this monumental task dropped from out of the sky onto people who have never done this sort of thing before--but its going pretty well. I think we are more pulled together than FEMA. There have been some terrible,inexcuseable screwups and delays.We keep hearing about one after another. We are having lots of phone calls at school for potential new students. Selfishly, I hope we dont get really overcrowded. The traffic is still a problem,half the gas pumps are empty, there are lots of empty shelves at the stores-Walmart(2 different stores) had literally no womens underpants-(we went shopping for a refugee Grandmother made friends with), Calandros still has no bread.Im telling you, its a little nuts around here. Well, thats some of the latest. Im off now and its on to our own little mission field, MB
From: "Mary Bryant Smith"
To: Adam Smith, Kathleen Smith, John & Chris Kelly
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 20:37:15 +0000
Subject: disaster update
Hi Everyone, My internet is still down from the storm at home. Im getting this update off at school during my off hour. We are still just fine, although life as we knew it may never be quite the same. Right after I wrote on Thurs. we got word that the mall next door and the mall in Gonzales,15 minutes away were being looted. We went to lockdown and it was a little scary. Turns out that the mall next down was fine but the other one did have trouble. Rumors were flying like crazy, most untrue. School did get cancelled for Fri. because things were so unsettled. Over the weekend we worked some down at the church. We have taken in 700 refugees. All regular stuff except Sunday morning services have been suspended indefinitely because the 700 are living in the gym and classrooms. Grandmother is of course a one-woman Mother Teresa encouragement committee-, hugging babies, going out and buying air mattresses,visiting with every sad face she sees. Ive been bringing clothes and helping sort thru donations(there are so many ). There is a nurses station, a committee to help reunite families, a group of men constructing makeshift showers--you name it. Its this monumental task dropped from out of the sky onto people who have never done this sort of thing before--but its going pretty well. I think we are more pulled together than FEMA. There have been some terrible,inexcuseable screwups and delays.We keep hearing about one after another. We are having lots of phone calls at school for potential new students. Selfishly, I hope we dont get really overcrowded. The traffic is still a problem,half the gas pumps are empty, there are lots of empty shelves at the stores-Walmart(2 different stores) had literally no womens underpants-(we went shopping for a refugee Grandmother made friends with), Calandros still has no bread.Im telling you, its a little nuts around here. Well, thats some of the latest. Im off now and its on to our own little mission field, MB
