Where's Daddy Blog

Red Cross vs. FEMA November 26, 2009

When you live in an area that is plagued by natural disasters on a regular basis, you find out who you can turn to for assistance. My family was in Florida when a hurricane did millions of dollars of damage  to the majority of the state. FEMA was supposed to be providing help. However, they were days late and past the downed power lines waiting for families to risk their lives to come to them. The Red Cross came to us!

We were living in a mobile home community right off the highway. Our home was old and falling apart as it was. My father-in-law had just had his new trailer placed on the pad a few doors down. It hadn’t even passed inspection yet. We were all living in this shell of a house when the storm came. The walls rattled and shook. The windows leaked. The doors leaked.

As the wind and the rain let up from one of the bands blowing past, we ran to the other trailer. I carried my 4 year old son, covering his head from anything that might fly through the air at 60 -70 mph.  We made it safely to the other, more structurally sound home.

The water had been hooked up, so we could flush the toilet sparingly.  But the sewage lines were not set up right and our tub regurgitated the sewage. We had to boil water. Our refrigeration was gone, so much of our food was too. The nights were long and uneasy.

After the storm passed, we ventured out to see the damage. Our neighbors roofs were collapsed or peeled off the structure. We wandered over to our place to assess the damage. We were horrified to see our insulation strung across the yard. We had lost two whole walls of our bedroom. The awning was nowhere to be found.

The power lines were down across the streets in all directions. We were trapped in the trailer park untill they got it cleared up. No telling when that would be. We were on the outskirts of Ft. Lauderdale.

After the power company got the power cut off for the downed lines, we ventured out to get gas. No filling stations had any. The ones that did, had lines 1-2 miles long. We found out that FEMA had a relief station at the park down the street from out house. We headed there only to find out that they were not set up to help yet.

A couple days passed as we rationed our shrinking food supply. Then a neighbor knocked on our door and told us that the Red Cross was there by the pool giving out food and water. We went down there, and sure enough they brought the help to us!

They had a van full of water, MRE’s and hot meals.  We waited in line with the rest of our neighbors. They had enough for the whole park. They asked how many people we had, we told them there were 4 of us and they gave us 8 water bottles and four meals. They came back every day for 2 weeks, 3 times a day!  There was one day they had to go help another community, they asked if I could help them pass out the rest. With a humbled and dutiful wave rushing through me, I took the responsibility of following their lead.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is, support your Red Cross! They have been helping for more than a century. Help them continue helping us!