Delayed Posting for Friday, September 16

Pearlington, Mississippi
4:45 a.m.

I’m dying for coffee on the deck with Marian. But there’s no Marian and no deck – that’s for certain – so I settle for warm bottled water as I type by dome light. The sky is blessing Mississippi with a stunning display of stars and a blood-red moon is setting in the west, over the Gulf of Mexico.

It has to be my last day here and I’m wondering how it will go. These people are my friends now and I will miss them and their brave struggle to survive. But, survive they will. That is their nature. I’m tired, but excited about the day. My plan is to leave around 4 p.m. so I have strength left to drive far enough north to find a hotel room. I need to rest for the long journey home. Where’s a Tim Hortons when you need one?

8:45 p.m.

It’s been an eventful day, to say the least. It became apparent pretty quickly that almost all who knew our operation here at Aid Mart were scheduled to rotate out today. People began to fall apart at the prospect. We have taken a school that was still 6 ft. under mud and in a few short days turned it into an Aid Centre and a Shelter, clean enough to be approved by the Mississippi Dept. of Health and the E.P.A. this morning. We now house 80 homeless souls and I can provide you almost anything you need to camp and survive – except those damned generators. I don’t let anything out the door that’s a flammable heat or cooking source. There is so much deadfall in town that a careless fire would burn this burg to the ground. My new neighbours don’t need that on top of everything else.

When Paula left there were tears all around. She almost stayed, terrified it would all fall apart when everyone who had been here so long, finally pulled out. There were pictures all around and the exchange of email addresses. She’ll be back, but her husband’s insisted on a two-week break. I called Marian on the new satellite phone that got hooked up by some volunteer engineers from Seattle and cried like a child the minute I heard her voice. She already knew what I was going to say. She would take care of it all and I will stay the weekend so I can keep it all going until we get some more bodies I can train. Besides, there are 100 generators threatening to show up Monday morning and I am the only one left that the locals trust and know well enough to hand them out judiciously. There may be a riot otherwise. A man from Minnesota dropped in this afternoon and promises me five employees to begin training on Sunday. Another renegade here is bringing me five more new people tomorrow. One of them will replace me eventually.

We have an operation here now. I got in some solar showers and we got them hooked up with tarp curtains and everything. It’s kind of like Bag ‘o Shower, but it gets the job done – for the workers and the locals in the Shelter. We have a big enough generator for compound lights and the National Guard and cops from all over are here to keep the peace. We have a mobile communications centre and even a movie theatre, projected against the wall of a trailer. We’re a community now and we take care of each other.

The Red Cross finally showed up today and tried to take over. A contract doctor, who had waited at the state line until his fees were confirmed, showed up and began issuing orders. There’s a retired New York fire fighter here, several in fact, but this particular man is a survivor of 9/11 who bought and restored a fire truck. He calls it Fire Co. 343, to commemorate the 343 brave men and women who died that day in the line of duty for FDNY. Their pictures adorn the side of the engine. He had to be restrained when the doctor started his pompous thing, because we all know that what got done here was accomplished by men and women who hopped in their cars and trucks and just showed up. No bureaucracy, no three-day requisition procedure, just good ole grass roots get-it-done.

Doctor Big Stuff lasted ten minutes. As he stormed off, he ordered the medical staff here to close down their operation, or he would make sure their licenses got pulled. Three of them, volunteers for the Red Cross who had left their practices and lives behind to help, promptly resigned from the Red Cross and agreed to stay on. He’ll have to make some money somewhere else. The Red Cross pulled out then. It took them 14 or 15 days to get here and they lasted 14 or 15 minutes. The shelter is now being operated by a church group who operates shelters for a living and things started getting done right away. People are sleeping in there tonight. God bless ‘em all.

Patty (Patrick), the crazy retired fireman from New York, dashes everywhere. He was putting out structure fires by himself for a time, because we all thought the small local fleet had been destroyed. Turns out the local fire Chief and his son had it all figured out. Knowing Katrina was coming, they stashed their newest vehicle in another town farther north and after the flood, put in a claim to FEMA for $185,000.00 for it. They would get the money, pass off the hidden engine as the new one and in the confusion, pocket the cash. They didn’t count on Patty. Known in his trade as a free-lancer, and enraged that the Chief and his staff just stood and watched while he risked his life, did some checking and put Florida William, the state trooper, on the case. Like many here, they are the kind authority hates, because they wait for no one. They just jump in and get the job done, while everyone else is still standing around getting “organized.” Patty is a true hero of 9/11 and that truck, with his brother’s and sister’s pictures on it, protects him from those who would try to slow him down. Then, of course, there’s his mouth….and his temper….

The Chief was exposed, the engine located and brought here to help Patty, staffed by other firefighters and paramedics from FDNY. The Chief was carted off yesterday by the FBI, under federal indictment. You don’t wanna mess with the FDNY, nor with Florida William. Many lined up yesterday, amid some very colourful prose from Patty, to wave the Chief off with a certain finger.

I’m sitting on a huge ball of emotion. I let some go when no one’s looking – no one who lives here, at least. I find myself tearing up when telling someone of the heroism of Renegade Tom, or Portland Tim and his father Tim Sr. I know I’m getting fried, but there’s job left to do and I have to do it. I will fall apart in my family’s arms when I return. Dream School must be here when things are in better shape. The children are so cute and confused, but I got a shipment of Mickey Mouse dolls in today and we’re making them smile.

I have a great set-up tonight. I pitched a tent right in the back of the “Aid Mart.” My irreverence helps keep things from getting too intense and the local women giggle and call me Sugar and go get baby food and diapers. I’m definitely talking like a local now and it will probably annoy everyone for a few days after I return. Oh well. I have my tent and my air mattress, a cooler with ice and water (and a six-pack of Diet Pepsi) and even found a small fan I can hook into the generator to keep the heat and the mosquitoes at bay. I’m a happy guy, sleeping in my Aid Mart, waiting for the dawn of another day.

“Welcome to Aid Mart. May I take your order, please?”

Sleep well and pray for Pearlington. We need all the help we can get.