The Hurrican Evacuee Story.

I got this email that really ticked me off. 

 I will just paste it here:

*Subject:* FW: Shreveport Shelter 

The correspondence below came from a friend's brother who is from 

south La. and it was sent to Bill O'Reilly: 

You that are not from Louisiana do not understand that you can't do 

enough to help these people, the more you do-- the more they expect you to do, 

gimme-gimme-gimme and yes I meant to spell it that way. Volunteers work long hrs and 

they get spit on--yelled at--cursed. 

Hey folks this is just one copy of this letter that a colleague of mine sent to 

the national media. Let me just say that this lady travels the world doing 

medical missions and found Old Sams in S'port _scarrier_ than the 3rd world 

countries she has visited. Just thought you might like to hear what things were 

really like and this letter doesn't even begin to cover it 

Subject: Louisiana Evacuations & Shelters 

Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:3 1:31 +0000 

Hello Mr. O'Reilly, 

I am a nurse who has just completed working approximately 120 hours as 

the clinic director in a Hurricane Gustav evacuation shelter in Shreveport, 

Louisiana over the last 7 days. I would love to see someone look at the evacuee 

situation from a new perspective. Local and national news channels have covered the evacuation and "horrible" conditions the evacuees had 

to endure during Hurricane Gustav. 

True - some things were not optimal for the evacuation and the shelters need 

some modification. At any point, does anyone address the responsibility (or irresponsibility) of 

the evacuees? 

Does it seem wrong that one would remember their cell phone, charger, cigarettes 

and lighter but forget their child's insulin? 

Is something amiss when an evacuee gets off the bus, walks immediately to the 

medical area, and requests immediate free refills on all medicines for which *they cannot provide a prescription or current bottle (most of which are narcotics)?* 

Isn't the system flawed when an evacuee says they cannot afford a $3 copay for a 

refill that will be delivered to them in the shelter yet they can take a city-provided bus to Wal-mart, buy 5 bottles of Vodka, and return to consume them secretly in the shelter?* 

* 

Is it fair to stop performing luggage checks on incoming evacuees so as not to 

delay the registration process but endanger the volunteer staff and other persons 

with the very realistic truth of drugs, alcohol and weapons being brought into the shelter?* * 

Am I less than compassionate when it frustrates me to scrub emesis from the 

floor near a nauseated child while his mother lies nearby, watching me work 26 

hours straight, not even raising her head from the pillow to comfort her own son?* 

* 

Why does it insense me to hear a man say "I ain't goin' home 'til I get my FEMA 

check", when I would love to just go home and see my daughters who I have only 

seen 3 times this week?* 

Is the system flawed when the privately insured patient must find a way to get 

to the pharmacy, fill his prescription and pay his copay while the FEMA 

declaration allows the uninsured person to acquire free medications under the disaster rules?* 

* 

Does it seem odd that the nurse volunteering at the shelter is paying for childcare while the evacuee sits on a cot during the day as the shelter provides a "day care"?* 

* 

Have government entitlements created this mentality and am I facilitating it with my work? 

Will I be a bad person, merciless nurse or poor Christian if I hesitate to work 

at the next shelter because I have worked for 7 days being called every curse 

word imaginable, felt threatened and feared for my personal safety in the shelter?* 

* 

Exhausted and battered but hopefully pithy,* 

* 

Sherri Hagerhjelm, RN* 

Ok, so I got this email yesterday and it really rankled me. I was irritated at the evacuees but the lady that wrote and then published this letter. I am an agent of love. That’s what we are called to be correct, everyone that believes in the New Testament say Aman! When I read this it made me sick to my stomach. I too was at the shelter volunteering for the Red Cross 12 hour all night shifts when I had a full time job and school to greet me each morning. I too have been over seas, and served in the worst of the worst, the last place was one of the most dangerous slums in East Africa, a Muslim Somalian refugee camp, in the middle of seven prostitute camps. I know bad, I know scary, and I know disgusting. The shelters were not up to out tax dollar standards at all, to say the least. In fact one of the shelters I worked at was shut down by the health department because it was so dirty that the evacuees and volunteers were getting a bacteria that was causing a horrible virus. I know it wasn’t our helpful nurses problem but thankfully Cholera did not break out! I guess that only happens in places that have need.. Not America.. These people should know better than to have need. It kind of upsets me that someone will give so much to these charities that service people all over the world (Keeping in mind I have my own NGO that services kids in East Africa) but we cannot take care of the hurting here, because we feel like they should be able to help themselves. I can honestly tell you that I felt God so much stronger working in that shelter looking into the eyes of Jesus through every hurting person, than I ever would in a fancy church building. Through helping people who are rude to you exercise the Beatitudes! What I reward.. I was cursed at because I could not give away the hundreds of blankets that we had in boxes, to a lady who obviously not getting the fix of crack she was used to. I could give them to the sick elderly, Thank you Jesus. There was excess amount of supplies at the beginning, but when the Jefferson Parish people left we thought we were closing shop. When I got off work that night I found out that they were bussing in over a thousand people to our shelter from Homer, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. The only thing was that all of the cots were already put up.. So, Richard, Tyna, and I started putting cots up for like 500 people in this one room. I couldn’t physically put the cots up because my body was so exhausted and over worked. So, I recruited the firefighters to help. Its easy being a girl sometimes. We put down all of these cots and then realized that we could not have them out because they were the cots that the Jefferson Parish evacuees had been sleeping on for a week. Most of them had urine or other unknown stains on them. The health department was going to shut us down. Oh God I hope we have enough new cots. Would you feel comfortable sleeping on that? Then Tyna and I get the job of spraying down the old cots with Lysol (which by the way we only had 2 cans of for 800 cots) to make the evacuees that started to flood in more comfortable. Wait lets take a break to say that these people had been told that they were headed home, and never told that they were going to another shelter. Mandatory evacuation really stinks when you do not have enough money to drive somewhere, or you do not have any family to take you in, or you don’t have enough money to stay in a hotel and pay for food all week. To say the least the people that were coming in were tired, scared because there was news that gangs were looting homes in Baton Rouge, Families were separated, people had not been able to take medicine. Tyna almost got hit in the face by a man that had a sever case of schizophrenia who had ran out of his meds. We did not have any ice so our diabetics and people who needed ice to dissolve their pills were out of luck. We did not need bag searches of metal detectors because these people had done nothing except seek refuge by the government because of a natural disaster. There was a shooting outside of the shelter I was working at, but that was not an evacuee, well the evacuee was shot by a Shreveport local being territoria, gang related I guess. As for this nurse complaining about how the people would not leave without checks, which by the way I had a few people ask me but in no way rude, I would ask for compensation if I had to leave my job for over a week to evacuate and I was surviving on 3 jobs to pay my rent, food, and children expenses. I did have a few people come to me crying because they were afraid that they were going to be homeless/evicted like they were when they came back from evacuating Katrina. Being in street ministry I met homeless people from Katrina every week. As far as not feeling safe... if you did not feel safe with the state police, parish police, city police, NATIONAL GUARD with AK-47's, and firefighters EVERYWHERE than you have a problem with paranoia and you should get that checked out. As for the insurance, I guess the people that could afford insurance and medicine had enough money to go to the pharmacy and get it. Are we Marxist? Do we receive according to our need? Not the last time I checked.. The poor get help and the people who have enough money to buy, buy. Is it really that hard? I do not really think it is all fair with the government giving away so much money especially here in Louisiana either, but I know I am a Christian and it is my duty to help and represent the needy. Also, please do not judge thousands of people because of the bad attitudes of a few!

Thank you for volunteering, but if you are going to put God’s name on it, than please give with thanksgiving. What does the word say about giving to people who cant repay you? Please don’t make my Jesus reflect hate. I am very touchy when people give Jesus a bad name. We are the body and it is our call to remain in love.