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It looks like we’re done with this storm. There’s been some rain and gusts but nothing serious. We closed up the shelter about ten this morning, twenty-four hours after opening them yesterday. I drove a truck down to another shelter and brought back the unused supplies and food. A couple dozen volunteers showed up today after a two-day trip from the mid-west, but there was little to do by the time they got here. Had it been a bad storm, we sure would have been glad to see them. I’d much rather have over-reacted to this sort of thing than under-reacted. Everyone—Red Cross volunteers and clients, police, and county case workers—kept bringing up one name: “Wilma.”

The women with children at the shelter were much more appreciative of the help and less demanding than the homeless people were. The population was about fifty-fifty and housed separately. Some of the kids told me that they had stayed in that same gym for four weeks during Wilma. One of the deputies thought it was four weeks total between that shelter and another. They needed to move because the ground had become so saturated that they were contnually mopping up the water as it flooded in through the doors of the gym.

I’ve gotten a shower and now have a nice warm, dry hotel room to stay in for the next couple of days. For me this experience has been a good one, and it’s over. I had the opportunity to work for a while with some truly terrific people. The regulars at the Red Cross and the county will be back next time in the same roles, helping many of the same people. There’s little chance that Ona or Randy or the others will ever read this, but hats-off to them, and thanks.

The shelter-seekers were great as well. There are at least a few that I won’t forget—I’m thinking specifically of the kids and their “Karate Man.” I probably won’t be up for playing “War” any time soon, but we did build a pretty cool tow-truck out of Jenga blocks.

This morning we brought some supplies to eight shelters in Broward county. The food was already in place, but we brought some blankets, first-aid supplies, and toys and games for the kids. Since then I’ve been at a shelter at Arthur Ashe Middle School. I’m spending the night here to help out. There are not as many volunteers as they were hoping for.

Fortunately it looks like this storm is fizzling out. We haven’t even had much rain yet. It looks like there’s going to be a bit more coming later tonight, but probably not any major wind. We’ve had a couple hundred people come in to the shelter. Families are in one gymnasium and single men and women are in another. There are a 12-18 police here at any time. This school is in one of the least affluent areas of the county. The people have been great so far. It’s got to make it easier that they know they’re going home tomorrow and that the storm isn’t a major one. The kids are having fun and their parents are waiting it out. The homeless people are less comfortable because they didn’t have blankets and mattresses to bring with them.

One of the volunteers here spent six weeks running a shelter for 5000 people after Katrina. I can’t imagine being stuck somewhere with that many people for that long. He had almost no help and there were only a couple of police there at a time. That sounds like a seriously lousy way to spend your vacation. Some of the kids here were telling me that they spent 4 weeks in this gymnasium during and after Wilma last year. They were eventually relocated because of flooding–water was coming in under the doors. The gym has a tile floor probably with this in mind.

Dinner tonight was goulash, garlic bread, canned peaches and milk. And it was good. We had sporks. There’s nothing like eating goulash and peaches with a spork to make you feel like a refugee.

I’m going to try to get some sleep tonight at some point and then help shut down the shelter tomorrow morning. After that I’ll be free to wait around until my flight on Saturday. If I can get an earlier one I think I’ll try, but I don’t expect there will be flights until Thursday at the earliest.

I can’t tell you how great it is to have Internet access during this thing.

If this sort of thing continues I might have to rename this blog. I arrived here in sunny Fort Lauderdale last night for a class I had planned to take this week. Today at noon, after everyone else in the class bailed out and it was just the instructor and I, we decided to cancel the class.

So here I am. My scheduled flight back Baltimore is on Saturday, and I don’t want to get out of here tomorrow if it means taking a seat away from some old lady, so I’ve decided to weather the storm here. I’ve volunteered with the local chapter of Red Cross, and will be spending Tuesday and Wednesday with them at their Broward County headquarters and supply center. It’s got to be about the best place in this part of Florida to be during a storm. Tomorrow, bright and early, a number of us will be delivering truckloads of supplies to area shelters. Right now I have nothing to do but enjoy the weather so I thought I’d post.

Based on information from NOAA, the storm is headed directly for us. It’s very weak right now, but will probably gain some strength as it crosses the warm water of the Straits of Florida. It looks like it’s 90% that it will be either a Tropical Storm or a Category 1 Hurricane at landfall. In either case, there’s very little risk. It’s more of a problem of dealing with minor damage and storm surge near the beach, lots of rain, and probably some power outages. Here’s a table from NOAA’s bookie with percentages as of a few hours ago. It looks like it will make landfall at the thirty six-hour mark on that table.

Personally, I’ve got water, extra clothes, and a full tank of gas. I’ve also got Internet access through the cell phone network. As long as that’s up I’ll try to get word out occasionally. If the power is out, I’ll turn my phone and laptop off to conserve the batteries, so don’t be concerned if you can’t reach me. I’ll try to take some photos and post them over the next few days. I half expect this to be a very minor event, but I’ve nothing better to do right now than line up ducks.

So far, the only outward sign of impending doom is the lines at the gas stations. I saw a couple of stations that had run out of gas. There was plenty of bottled water and junk food at the 7/11, but apparently the grocery stores have been mobbed. I’ll post more when I can.