Salem Katrina Team Report for December 16

Several of our old hands (Steve, Brian, Phyllis) worked putting up wallboard at a Gautier trailer today, helping a gentleman who'd done much of the work himself before running out of steam and getting too cold to finish. Steve's dad Larry is here to visit him until Sunday, and we've tried to let him know how proud we are of his son.

Gee, only nine shopping days until Christmas! Only in the Carter family, we've all decided to exchange only cards and love this year...this is our Katrina Christmas, like so many folks down here.

Yesterday was spent with an elderly gentleman who was brought to us by the food contractor for the FEMA tent city next to us. He was confused, had bladder problems, and was out of various medicine. It took half a day, but we found wonderful help from the local D'Iberville Free Clinic and their volunteer physician. One of the nurses from our PDA camp was working there and we got to talking, and I learned with great joy that she's from Andover, Massachusetts where Joan and I lived for so many years.

We were blessed with our two college groups each using their contract buses to pick up loads of pallets from the WalMart about one mile away. We need them for building sidewalks, otherwise we're swimming in mud.

Our area PDA manager, Mr Dan Grimes, has insisted that no pallets or gravel be used at the new Gautier tent city that's going up. We have several of us volunteers with decades each of military field service and between us we cannot grasp the need to avoid using pallets to keep the tents up off the mud, or for not using gravel or other filler to somehow level the area. There must be a very wise reason to avoid such otherwise obviously necessary steps in camp living. I'm here to learn and I'm eager to discover the reason...so are the many other Army and Air Force professionals with field experience who are shaking their heads, wondering about it. This is something we learned to handle in our military field sanitation training. Something I want to draw from my Christian and my military training is how to be a good follower, especially here in Mississippi, so I want to support Mr. Grimes on this and other issues. It will all work out.

I phoned our son Ben who graduated yesterday. One of his contributions to Katrina was to tell Joan and me to work in Mississippi...to not travel to Vermont for his ceremony. We are very proud of him and eager to see him at the Gulfport airport on Tuesday when he comes to volunteer.

Lunch today was from the Red Cross which tries to deliver to places where there are victims or volunteers. Like us, they are volunteers doing their bit to help out. What else can one ask?