Things I saw at the Disaster Center

[Slave to the Phone]

I'm putting this in sightings even though I know that this is not a CS subject. It's here because us CS are our own community but live all over the world. As the title says, I have spent the last 5 days working at ground zero, so was able to see the resources that just suddenly appear.

BG: The Goodwin fire burnt about 23,000 acres a month ago and evacuations were lifted on 6/26/17. Many people lost everything and moved to lower places. The monsoons moved in. On 7/19/17 the heavy rain falling on the denuded mountains ran down to the Big Bug creek and started pushing all of the fallen trees and ash and burnt pieces of homes down towards Mayer (no reason to be coy with this).

Of course all that debris started getting lodged against things and caused the creek to overflow and flood Mayer, Spring Valley, Cordes Junction and Black Canyon City.

I was sent there to help people apply for food stamps or if they were already on food stamps, I could restore them if they lost their food in the flood.

At the disaster center, the Salvation Army had people handing out food boxes and really cool buckets with cleaning supplies.

Drinking water, which was sorely needed because the tap water was compromised arrived in pallet loads. Many folks out here have pets and livestock and would probably end up with carpel from opening all those bottles to fill up the horse trough, so the water company brought in 2 really large tanks of drinking water.

The Health Dept had a nurse there to give tetanus shots to anyone who wanted one.

There were a large number of LDS kids armed with shovels to help dig mud out.

Of course politicians and state big wigs showed up, but what ever.

The Red Cross had a disaster grief counselor there to listen and try to help anyone who was overwhelmed. (And who wouldn't be after losing everything in the fire and then again in the flood?)

The state disaster team were able to just stomp over any objections as far as the "that's not policy" things were concerned.

Olsen's Feed and Grain stores (local and family owned) fed the animals.

Salvation Army showed up with licensed food handlers who's opinion of food was "Do you have a mouth? Do you want food to put in the mouth? Here is food to put in the mouth. Do you know other mouths that need food? Yes? How many? Human or pet? Pet food is over there, chips are over here, do you want chicken or egg salad. How many boxes?" They also had a really cool cook trailer. The cook said that they could serve 100 people at a time and then start over if needed.

The toilet paper doesn't have tubes. I went to put a new roll on while I was "powdering my nose" and was all like "yeah, that makes sense" while I put it on the toilet tank.

[Sliceanddice]

Yeah sounds about right, disaster centers can be really well run and really no nonsense. I saw it myself when there was a fire at my father's apartment complex.

[Pixelated]

The state disaster team were able to just stomp over any objections as far as the "that's not policy" things were concerned.

I especially like this bit. Anybody who wants to enforce "policy" under these conditions should be forced to LIVE under these conditions until such time as either they smarten up, or things return to normal ... whichever takes longer.

[Slave to the Phone]

I'm sorry to hear about the apartment fire. Horrible, all those people running out with only the clothes on their back.

This was the first disaster center that DES was sent to, so I had no idea what to expect. The flood was the evening of the 19th and while my home wasn't affected, our bridge flooded out and I wasn't sure if it would be open in the morning, so I called in.

As it happened, the bridge was open about 10 the next morning because of the instant response from the road dept.

The morning of the 21st, a request for volunteers went out and I loaded up and left. When we got there I felt like we were the bald headed step children. Everyone else had organization shirts but us. Everyone else had nice professional signs and we used copy paper and highlighters to make our signs. Everyone else had laptops and we had half a dozen different forms and a box of pens.

Everyone else had stuff to give to people, even if it was just a shot. As food stamp workers, we are not allowed to give actual food to people.

Is everyone for me now? Yeah, I thought so!

Whatever...we got it done.

Other things I saw included people refusing to take things because they felt that others needed them more. I had to get "mean" at a coworker/victim because while she was admiring the things being offered, she didn't stop to realize that she was one of the people that all of us workers were there to help.

[workerbee222]

After reading this, I feel better about people now.

[Slave to the Phone]

This has been horrible, yet also heart lifting when I hear of all of the things people have been doing privately.

There have been 3 floods since then (or maybe 4, I have lost count). Not as bad and not as many homes affected, but everyone is more than a little shell-shocked.

My co-worker/friend has lost her yard 3 times. Fire floods are much different than the flooding that happens back east. Those floods move good, organic rich dirt. Those folks lose plants and stuff, but can easily replant when the ground dries out.

Arizona wild fire floods just leave trash which quickly hardens into a form of adobe. (Sun hardened clay mixed with burnt sticks, ash, rocks and random tires/sheds/trailer, etc.)

Just driving to work is depressing, visiting my friend is something I do out of duty because its hard to drive when I'm crying over the new damage.

Things are not good here. However...

The official emergency responses are nothing short of amazing. On Friday, I left work less than 10 minutes after I had gotten the urgent flood warning. It took me 17 minutes to get to the danger zone and roads had already been closed, emergency vehicles were all over the place and 2 rescue helicopters were over the creek.

We have community bulletin boards in certain places and I always look at them. Since the fire, they have been covered with notices from churches and private organizations offering free things to victims.

Those LDS kids have been busting ass (digging their way to heaven) digging, moving and hauling. They never seem to tire and they always come with their own food and water because they don't want to stretch the resources of someone who might not have resources to stretch.

Several local landlords have allowed families to move into their property without deposits and in 2 cases that I know of, even without the first month's rent.

I heard of someone with a pick-up knocking on doors of flooded places and giving away shop vacs and heavy duty extension cords to help get the water out.

I mentioned to a neighbor that the people eating at the disaster center had been eating nothing but packaged food and she arrived the next day with trays of cut up fruit and veggies.

Its not something I ever want to live through again, but it does give me hope for the human race.

Of course, there are the scammers. They will always be a part of the human race. I had someone from an area about 60 miles from the disaster area tell me that she had lost her food due to the power being out. I smiled, had her write her statement and sign it and told her that I would send it up.

Which I did, including a note to investigate because I had not heard of that area losing power.

Last week, a co-worker came to me because his client said that she had lost her food because the power had been out for 3 days due to the flood and that she lived in my community.

Coworker found this questionable because client lives close to me and my coworker knew that he would have heard about it due to the fact that I tend to be rather vocal about being inconvenienced and he hadn't heard anything about my power being out for longer than a couple of hours.

We aren't supposed to do this, but when he messaged me, I asked my client to hold while I bought her paperwork to sign and went out and had a short conversation with the woman who lives kitty-wampus from us.

End result was that my coworker's client (I refuse to call them customers, customers pay money for product. We have clients who must jump through hoops to get product for free.) told my coworker that she might have been mistaken about the dates, and that it was probably fire involved. Restored benefits denied, note in file that customer isn't always as truthful as we would like.