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Now in January 2006, the situation is stabilizing, volunteers are only being sent on a limited basis. Here are some of Local 535 messages from Louisiana…

MESSAGE from Margaret Levine: Sunday, Sept. 18, 2005 4:26 a.m.

Subject: We're here I am so proud of SEIU...all of the SEIUs.   

We met folks from other Locals yesterday...one woman Vicki came from somewhere to be a nurse here and has ended up coordinating all the SEIU volunteers coming in to Baton Rouge.  Terry from Atlanta met us at the airport and he had only been here one day.  They gave us a car and Shanna and I drove to Thibodeaux which is about 45 minutes from New Orleans and where Katrina was supposed to hit.  We are staying with a couple who got hooked up with us through their church. 

We are so lucky not to be with Red Cross...Vicki told us they put the volunteers and other agencies through lots of red tape.  Shanna and I were at our site even with a two-hour drive four hours after getting here.  Our site is a field hospital at Nicholls College.  There are 922 evacuees in the gyms there and 97 patients in a "hospital" set up at the Nursing School. 

The DHH which is like California's DHS had called Vicki to say they were desperate for nurses so we came here right away.  We will work 12 hour shifts starting this morning pretty much every day till we leave.  The field hospital has everything from mental health to patients on dialysis, diabetics, patients needing wound care, etc.  Beverly, a public health nurse from Louisiana said they have been set up and running since two days before Katrina hit.  They are doing such a good job that hospitals are sending patients here now. 

There is a DMAT team from I think Indiana doing triage...all the teams change every week or two.  It is amazing it all works.  Most of the nurses we met yesterday are leaving today or tomorrow and 34 new nurses are expected today.  Please let your supervisors know that 535 is participating in an incredibly helpful endeavor and is that help ever needed.  It is so different to hear people share their experiences in person of living in the Superdome and all that came afterward.  Thanks to everyone who is helping to make this happen.



MESSAGE from Margaret Levine:  Sept. 19, 2005 8:41 p.m.

I just love the kind of nursing I am doing here.  They put me in charge of the "green" room which has the highest acuity patients.  These people are truly the salt of the earth.  They all have significant medical problems ranging from kidney failure and insulin dependent diabetes to recovering from amputation of leg following what they call "the storm."  No one here really says the word hurricane. 

We just got word today that tomorrow we have to evacuate to Alexandria as a hurricane may come our way.  I feel so badly for these people who have been through so much already and have gone from shelter to shelter finally to feel comfortable here.  So we handled the news by going out and getting Chinese food for everyone.  I had asked Clo, a woman recovering from a cerebral aneurysm what she wanted to eat because she never eats the food and sometimes cries when she sees it.  She wanted shrimp fried rice and egg rolls.  Honestly, it is the first time I saw her smile.  These people are so dear!  Mabel, Ivory, Louis...I want to bring them all home with me.  So tomorrow we start a different kind of adventure. 

I am so grateful I am here for two weeks.  They all were afraid when they were told we had to evacuate tomorrow and when I told them I was going with them they felt better.  All this in two days!  Bonds really form quickly in this kind of environment.   I guess no more emails after this...not sure where we will be staying in Alexandria.  Let everyone know who has a hand in this relief effort that SEIU shines in this environment.  Did you know Red Cross will not send nurses to the special needs shelter we are working at?  I guess they don't do special needs.  So keep sending nurses!  The need is tremendous.  And Vicki is doing a great job, as is Atlanta Terry.  

I am staying with another SEIU nurse Karen Reeves from Pomona Valley Hospital.  She Shanna and I will stay with these patients and go to Alexandria together.  And by the way, there are more nurses, doctors and pharmacists here from Indiana than any other place.  Instead of asking volunteers where they are from, we ask "What part of Indiana are you from?"  We must visit there someday.

MESSAGE from Lisa Karkoski:  Sept. 21, 2005
I've been volunteering as a mental health worker in Lake Charles, Louisiana since Sunday night (9/18) at a makeshift shelter where I'm also staying. The shelter is actually a Civic Center-a huge building with a stadium, theaters, and conference rooms. About 2,500 evacuees from New Orleans are here. Most of them evacuated before Hurricane Katrina hit. 

Normally I work in Sacramento in Kaiser Permanente's Psychiatry Department, on the Crisis Team. I wanted to volunteer for this disaster in part because I love Louisiana and New Orleans. I found out about the opportunity through my steward at SEIU Local 535. 

Today, along with all the evacuees and other volunteers, I'm actually in the process of being evacuated due to Hurricane Rita. My group is leaving at 6:30 tonight for Alexandria, Louisiana. As I write this, bus information is being broadcast over the Center's loudspeakers every 5 minutes or so.  

One frustration right now is that everyone here is limited to taking just one bag of luggage, and they don't know if they're coming back. Another recent source of stress: over the past couple days, evacuees had to listen to each other's names read quickly over the loudspeakers (they were receiving debit cards from the Red Cross), and since the names weren't read in alphabetical order, they had to constantly listen for their names. 

So providing an emotional outlet for people is what I'm doing, along with a team of seven other mental health volunteers, one of whom is also an SEIU member. We're providing brief, emotional, day-to-day support-mostly active listening and validating. 

Today I heard a lot of 'Oh my gosh, why does there have to be another hurricane? How can this be happening? Here we go again.'  Day to day, my work is very informal. Our team walks around, as individuals, saying hello to people. If people look like they want to talk, we're there to talk. Sometimes I say I'm a mental health worker, sometimes I don't. It depends on whatever seems to make people more comfortable. 

We talk for 15 minutes or so. So I'm not working in a clinical capacity. I'm not doing assessment, diagnosis, or crisis intervention work (crisis intervention meaning helping the person talk about their experience at length, calling on coping skills they might have used in the past, etc). The local social services and therapist community here are providing those services. But the emotional outlets we're providing will help to ease the longer-term traumatic reactions people may have.  

During my first 24 hours here, I talked with 29 adults and nine children. (I'm finding that more people want to talk than not.) I also talked with one person who works in the community and five Red Cross volunteers. Just like the evacuees, the volunteers benefit from having emotional outlets. They're working long hours, they're being stretched pretty thin, and they're hearing a lot of stories. 

I probably won't know how this is fully affecting me until I've been back. It's been day-to-day survival for me too because I've had less sleep and crazy eating schedules. I haven't had a chance for it all to sink in. It's blowing my mind as well.  It's really important to be here. A lot of people have said to me that they're just really touched that we've come from so many different states. They know a lot of us are here on our own time, and that means a lot to them.


MESSAGE from Shanna Cronan:  Sept. 27, 2005

They've lost their jobs, they have no money, they have lost everything.  People need work for a sense of purpose and fulfillment and accomplishment.  They are living in a shelter situation and are sitting there with nothing to do and are feeling hopeless more and more.  They have lost faith in the agencies which are supposed to be helping them...the government and Red Cross.  They feel the churches are coming through for them, however.  If they have a job, they could get out of the shelters and establish themselves in a community more quickly.  In the workforce they could make more connections and find a home, rather than living in a shelter or just being "put up" in some other type of housing.   Keep the money that is to be made rebuilding New Orleans in New Orleans.


MESSAGE from Karen Reeves, SEIU 121 (Pomona Valley Hospital)

The number of people living in poverty in New Orleans is among the highest in the nation.   These same people now find themselves displaced with a deep sense of loss-a loss of identity of what was once familiar to them-a neighborhood, a family, a home, all things we find that make up community.   They need to have a sense of ownership of their city and their communities.  If they can help rebuild it, they have a chance to take better care of it.  Right now they have time on their hands and they need a sense of purpose.  These jobs of rebuilding New Orleans are vital to boosting their morale and stimulating the local economy.


MESSAGE from Margaret Levine On Sept. 27

I want to try to convey the effects of displacement on the thousands of residents of New Orleans.  It is devastating.  I have been living out of a backpack for almost two weeks now.  What keeps me going?  What makes me want to do a better and better job each day?  It is knowing that I am making a difference.  Knowing that I am contributing to the betterment of fellow human beings lives.  How would it be if I were living out of a backpack with no purpose to my day or nothing that needed to be accomplished?  How soon would I lose all hope?  Whoever the powers that be are, I beg you to give the jobs for rebuilding New Orleans to the people of New Orleans. 

I want to give you an example of the spirit of these people.  There was an elderly man and his stepdaughter in our special needs shelter.  One day I saw he had some change in a plastic baggie.  The nurse I worked with told me that was all the money they had.  We were re-assigned to another area and I had to leave that shelter.  Before I left, I gave this man and his daughter a brown paper bag with cash in it.  Afterward, Cliff, who is 90 years old, called me over, took my hand and said, 'If there is ever anything you need, I want you to call on me!'  I told him that I knew he was someone I could always count on.  We are calling on you to help these people help themselves!


MESSAGE from Shanna Cronan

Thank you [Kathy Ballard] and the SEIU for organizing such a great relief tour of Louisiana for Margaret Levine, Karen Reeves and me. It was a wonderful experience. We felt like we really made a significant contribution to the recovery of our brothers and sisters in the South from the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It was an experience of a lifetime. I'll never forget it or the people we met especially the survivors of the storms. They are heroes. Thank you, again.


MESSAGE from Kathleen Gast

I just wanted to thank you [Kathy Ballard] and entire SEIU management for making the trip to Louisiana a reality. It was a humbling and worthwhile experience and I feel very grateful to have been able to go. The local SEIU staff was wonderful and took excellent care of us. Thank you again.


MESSAGE from Annette James-Rogers (Kaiser)

I was a 535 mental health disaster volunteer partnered with the American Red Cross (ARC) and worked 12-18 hour shifts providing psychological services to evacuees, ARC, and military personnel in challenging circumstances.  Of necessity I also performed myriad non-mental health tasks such as linen distribution, nutrition, child care, etc.  Rita forced us to relocate Katrina evacuees from Lake Charles to Alexandria, LA and to shelter about 1,000 additional persons. Without running water/toilets/showers for days, I ate military field rations, slept in the boiler room, outdoors, and on the kitchen floor.  During my two-week deployment, I encountered many wonderful clients and volunteers. In summary, the experience was unique, humbling, and immensely rewarding.

Other members (that we know of), who also volunteered through their employer or on their own accord were:  Mary Boyd, Jim Clifford, and Molly Miller from Kaiser, Renee Keester-Wellman from San Diego County, and Peter Kehoe from Santa Clara County. 

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