Hurricane Season 2004

Our crew working in Georgia while waiting to be cleared for passage to Florida.

 Sam (my son) at http://samwrites2.wordpress.com/ asked me to blog about my experience in disaster relief work during the 2004 hurricane season.  Of course we all love to talk about ourselves and what we have done so here goes.  One day at our church my husband and I attended a meeting where they were recruiting volunteers for disaster relief work.  This was just prior to the hurricane season but major hurricanes were being predicted.  We considered this a good way to serve the Lord so we signed up for the chain saw crew.  Now, neither one of us knew how (and did not want to learn how) to use a chain saw but we were assured that we did not need to use a chain saw.  Some of us would be needed to pull and drag brush.  So we attended the training, purchased uniforms and obtained the proper credentials that would allow us to enter and work on a disaster site.  So we were prepared.  Little did we know the blessings that would be in store for us.  Our first call came in after hurricane Charley hit and did so much devastation.  We left home in our church van and other vehicles with a crew of about eight and headed for Florida.  On the way there we received a call that we had to change course because of another hurricane that was heading our direction.  So we detoured to a staging area near Atlanta, Georgia.  There we bunked overnight in a church building.  That night, due to hurricane Frances, a tornado hit the town where we were staying and did quite a bit of damage while we huddled in a stairwell of the church.  We were in wait status for a while but were soon told there were areas close by that needed help if we could get to them.  Our assignment was to clear a short road in a residential area that was totally blocked by two huge trees, one on each end of the street.  Residents there could not leave in their vehicles due to the fallen trees blocking the way.  Our crew went right to work.  We cleared the road for them.  When the persons operating the chain saws would cut off a limb, others of us would haul the limb or log to a pile in a designated area.  Some to the logs were so huge that we needed handtrucks to move them.  The smiles and hugs we received from the residents was pay enough for our efforts.  We had worked in the rain about 4 hours, got soaked to the skin, when we received orders to pack up and move on towards our destination in Florida.  Note:  In order to jog my memory about the names of the hurricanes for this blog, I did some research in Google about the 2004 hurricane season.  I learned that , “The Atlantic Basin had a more active season than average in 2004 with 15 tropical storms and 9 hurricanes, including 6 major hurricanes.”  The following website is full of information about the hurricanes of 2004:  http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2004/hurricanes04.html  This is to be continued…..