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| October 2005 |
| Contents Words of inspiration Words of Inspiration [A]ll about us there
are many who are in need of help . . . Our mission in life, as followers
of the Lord Jesus Christ, must be a mission of saving. There are the homeless,
the hungry, the destitute. Their condition is obvious. We have done much.
We can do more to help those who live on the edge of survival. Gordon B. Hinckley Source: “Our
Mission of Saving,” Ensign, Nov. 1991 "This Is a Disaster" by John-Charles Duffy, Media Director
As Hurricane Katrina closed in on New Orleans and the Mississippi coast, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. When I heard that they were evacuating the city, I knew things were going to get bad. There was talk about the fact that not everyone had the means to get out, and so some people were going to have to ride the storm out in the Superdome. But somehow I imagined that things were "under control." I mean, it's not like we haven't been hit by hurricanes before. You knew there was going to be a lot of destruction--destroyed homes, flooded streets, and so on. The National Guard would be mobilized. The Red Cross would go into action. Churches and other organizations would send trucks of food and supplies. And then people would rally together to rebuild. The usual hurricane story. Then you started seeing pictures and TV footage of people packed into the Superdome. Standing on overpasses. Desperately waving from rooftops where they'd punched their way out from inside after getting trapped in their attics. Elderly people sitting in wheelchairs on sidewalks. Without water. Without sanitation facilities. Without first aid. Without law. All of this days after the hurricane had come and gone. That''s when it hit me: This is not the "usual" hurricane story. This is a disaster. No doubt there will eventually be Congressional hearings and bestselling exposés about who, exactly, is to blame for letting a natural disaster become an emergency preparedness disaster. Heads will roll. Political careers will end. Some of that's already begun. Hopefully something at least approaching justice will come out of that process. The role of race in all this will never be answered to everyone's satisfaction. Was the government relatively indifferent to the plight of refugees because they were, for the most part, black? I lean toward the explanation I heard one commentator offer: that the problem was mostly about incomprehension, an inability on the part of people with means to imagine that not everyone can just get in their car and find a motel. Still, whether it was incomprehension or a more malignant manifestation of racism, what happened was an outrage. The lack of an evacuation plan for indigent people. The slow mobilization of government relief. Hopefully, as I heard one person pray a couple weeks ago, this disaster will lead to an increased awareness of the intersection of race and poverty--and a greater willingness to do something about it. Reports from Houston On-the-ground views of Katrina refugee relief
On September 7, LA MESJ's Sue Cannon, a registered nurse, flew to Houston to provide medical services to Katrina refugees there as part of a team of volunteers from the California Nurses Association. A report from Sue, and photos of her team's work, appear below. To paint a picture of the context for Sue's report, we've also excerpted here posts from the blog maintained by Sue's team, the CA CNA Katrina Volunteers. The picture they paint is heartbreaking and horrifying, though there are also rays of hope and inspiring outpourings of volunteer service. Read on . . . A Collective Journal CA CNA Katrina Volunteers
Editor's note: The following are excerpts from the blog of the CA CNA Katrina Volunteers, a team that included Sue Cannon of LA MESJ. The blog is a kind of collective journal, with contributions from various team members. The author of a particular entry is usually not identified. The volunteers worked at a clinic set up in Houston's Reliance Arena, part of the complex where the Astrodome is located. Some 25,000 Katrina refugees were evacuated from the Superdome, in New Orleans, to the Astrodome, in Houston, at the beginning of September.
Just arriving in Houston While waiting in the lobby for our hotel shuttle to take us to the "Dome," we met Tina and Brian Oakes, both nurses and a married couple from Colton, CA . . . They described the major problems we would be facing: people with diabetes who were walking in dirty diseased water and their feet/lower extremities had lacerations; people with major medical problems (diabetes, high blood pressure, dialysis, cardiac diseases, etc.) and no medical help for 7 days. People would show up from the buses being unloaded from the Superdome in New Orleans and physically carried to Triage for medical care...
The "Medical Center" takes up almost the entire Arena. . . We had several cases of patients who needed critical medical attention who should have been sent to a hospital emergency room, but we try to handle what is presented. About half of the patients coming in have nausea/vomiting/abdominal cramps/ diarrhea . . . Another 25% of our patients have infected lacerations/wounds of the feet and lower legs. Many have already been incised and drained; on antibiotics, with fevers, return visits to redress the wounds. Babies especially have skin rashes from being exposed to dirty water. I spoke with Kelly Weller, a teacher for EMT's who was circulating around the clinic supervising her volunteers. She said that she was working in the Dome doing triage last weekend--processing approximately 400 people per hour. The EMS parameters were: (1) dead, (2) fixing to die, (3) breathing. SWIFT, a local agency that handles senior citizens issues requested RN's to sweep the different living areas here and find seniors needing medical care and/or housing. Nurses found old people who were dead on their cots and some who did not know who they were or where they were. . . .
In addition to their medical problems, most of our patients are suffering/will be suffering post traumatic stress syndrome. I looked at a middle-aged woman and asked if she was ok. She said no. " have an 85-year-old mother who is handicapped from a stroke and my baby sister still at our home in (some parish not yet evacuated). I cannot deal with FEMA payments or anything until I find my family." I had a patient who showed up with her 14-year-old grandson's medical file. She said that she brought her grandson in for treatment to Mental Health Services the day before, but she did not receive one prescription. She said that her grandson was in the Dome "out of control." I asked her how many people in her family; she said 8 total. I observed and told her that she was trying to take care of her family and not taking care of herself. She started crying loudly, saying "I cannot take it anymore." I put my arms around her waist and escorted her to mental health services. . . . On the day of the FEMA riot, all of the centers were in "lock down." No one could leave, no lunch arrived, no supplies.
. . . Connecting with family: this is the major concern of people residing here. I heard one elderly woman tell a worker that when she was lining up in buses at the Superdome, that they were putting men in separate buses from the women. And these buses went to different shelters in three states. (Do you get this picture?) . . . I sat in the Computer Center all day with volunteers doing a great job of connecting people with family members. The cowbell rang all day. The tradition is that [when someone connects online with a family member] you have [them] ring the bell and all those present holler and clap their hands. I was able to help about 4 people find family when I figured out the computer system in the afternoon. Everyone who came to me found a relative looking for them! It was such an emotional event.
Said a Houston police officer sitting at a checkpoint into the Dome. I looked around and saw a middle-aged black woman about 6 foot tall and weighing 250 pounds. I went up to her and she grabbed my hands. "Do you remember me?" "How do I remember you?" "You went through hoops to get me my medicine." (Big bear hug) "Well, my medicine that I need will not be ready until Thursday." I do not remember what medicine she needed, but gave a big sign of disgust. What do we have to do? Many patients, especially those with tooth abscess (does anyone relate to that pain?)--especially those who have just undergone minor surgery I/D to infections in their lower limbs from walking in dirty water and having some foreign object penetrate their skin? NO NARCOTICS PRESCRIBED. NADA..
Violence in the Dome I had one young woman on Thursday morning who came into Triage who was a rape victim the night before. She was in so much stress and anguish. I gave her a hug and we sent her off to OB/Gyn. (Maybe 16-18 years old?) I was told that there were several suicide attempts during the week that we were there; several times nurses found old people dead on their cots because they had no family to look after them. There were gunshot wounds, people saying they were in fights.
The word is that "they" are moving all of the people housed in the Astrodome and the Reliant Center to the Arena on Friday. There is a football game at the ballpark on Sunday. Isn't that coincidental? Especially since they moved all of the people out of the Arena last Wednesday night to the Astrodome because the Dome was "better suited" for them. Now they are going to move everyone to the Arena. I hope it will not be in the middle of the night like the last time. There was a wedding in the middle of the Astrodome today at 3 pm! One of our nurses is an opera singer and was part of the ceremony. The bride was beautiful, wearing a white dress, and everyone in the Dome cheered for them.
Another middle-aged woman told me that she was on a bridge [in New Orleans] for three days; two days with no food or water. “I watched dead bodies pass by in the river below me, including babies. It was something I do not wish anyone to ever see.” Kourtney, our opera singer and Pediatric nurse found a 5-week-old baby on a cot at the Astrodome, that was cold and blue. She took a syringe out of her pocket and suctioned the baby . . . and revived it.
Remembrances of My Houston Experience by Sue Cannon (Los Angeles)
Friday, September 16, 2005 The Harris County Hospital District had a humongous task dropped on them. They didn't have the luxury of forming committees to plan task forces to figure out how to survey resources to see what could be done as my hospital system (University of California) is still in the process of doing. They just had to do it and do it now. Those health care workers of Harris County, with true leaders as their DONs and Medical Directors, put a workable system together in the moment as it was needed. These people are true heroes and have my great admiration. I mostly worked in the Triage and Fast Track areas of the clinic set up in the Reliant Arena. Most everybody I saw had been in the "dirty water" in New Orleans. They needed tetnus and hepatitis A vaccinations. Many had chronic illnesses like hypertension and diabetes, for which they needed prescription refills of their daily medicines like insulin and blood pressure pills. I talked with an OB-Gyn doctor who said that many of the pregnant women coming in to her had not had any pre-natal care. Who knows how many among the thousands out there will never see a doctor until they deliver and maybe not even then. An OB nurse told me that they sent a 15-year-old to the hospital who was 26 weeks along in labor. Oh how I wish we had universal health care!
Most of the others I saw who came through the clinic had minor wounds incurred while getting out of New Orleans. A lot of people modestly told stories of how they helped others to the Superdome or a freeway where a pickup bus was supposed to come. Neighbor helping neighbor, stranger helping stranger. It still deeply touches me to think of it. On Monday evening, while walking back to my hotel, I saw a few people demonstrating across the street from the Reliant Stadium. They were the New Black Panthers, who were there to rally support for black (and working people) power. They were calling for the impeachment of Bush because of his mangled response to this emergency. I spoke with one of the protestors about the probable education level of the bulk of the people here. So many had limited verbal skills, unable to express anything without the F-word. We guessed that few had a high school education. Many of the young adult males dress in very baggy pants that are pulled up only to the top of the leg. It takes a certain amount of skill in how you stand and how you walk to keep pants like that up. But I thought about these guys walking like that into a job interview and them not getting very far. And all for a job that paid $5/hr. They must figure that it's better to take their chances on the street.
The other thing that I wondered about is the life skills the evacuees here have. Obviously they are survivors. But do they have the skills to know how to think ahead, plan ahead, budget ahead? Given money, do they realize what they will need it for? Those that have drug habits continue to need the drugs and indeed have found their drugs. Many people that came through the clinic wanted narcotics. Many wanted meds for pain--vicodin was on many's list of medicines, but the clinic stocked no narcotics. Apparently during the first few days, a pharmacy truck was robbed, much to the disappointment of those seeking narcotics. It is my belief that some of those that I literally rubbed shoulders with here in Houston will not want to take advantage of this chance for a new start. Some will want to, but not know exactly how even with all the aid. And some will take this chance and plug themselves and their families into the American Dream. Because of them, all that we have done and will yet do, is worth it. Please check out my photos at http://photos.yahoo.com/suespencercannon
Remember in Your Prayers...
Refugees of Hurricane Katrina and those working to assist them: The initial nightmare is over, but the effort to help refugees rebuild their lives continues. Give thanks for all the volunteers who have sacrificed to bring needed services to Katrina refugees in the aftermath of the disaster. Pray that those who continue to help will be strengthened physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Pray for the refugees themselves, who are now picking up the pieces of their lives. Pray that they will be comforted as they face loss, including the loss of loved ones. Pray that they will be healed of physical and emotional trauma. Pray that families who have been separated will find one another. There are many ways to add action to your prayers. The Church website and the American Red Cross are good places to begin.
Sunday School Notebook
Our government seems to have been slow to remember the poor who had no means of evacuating in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina. In a democratic country, where government represents the will of the people, all citizens collectively bear the guilt of that neglect. Hopefully the disastrous refugee situation will be a wake-up call that our country needs to do better at "remembering" the poor among us.
General Conference Reflections
Reflecting on the October 2005 General Conference, were there words you found particularly inspiring--or challenging--in relation to social justice or social action? Share your reflections for future issues of the newsletter. One year ago, Gordon B. Hinckley closed the October 2004 General Conference with these words: "We have experienced another great conference. . . . Our faith [has] been strengthened, our resolve fortified. Where we have felt defeated and beaten, I hope that a new courage has come into our lives. Where we have been wayward and indifferent, I hope that a spirit of repentance has taken hold of us." What was said during this past Conference that strengthened your resolve
to work for justice and peace? That gave you courage to go on working
in a good cause despite feelings of defeat? That infused you with a new
sense of commitment, perhaps to help you out of a rut of indifference? Call for Submissions
Send submissions to the editor at jcduffy@hotmail.com. Please put Anxiously Engaged in the subject line.
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