Tues: arrive, SWA flight waits for me after ridiculous flight with SLU jock surgeon med student who talked the entire way esp with girl headed to Houston and was hilarious and obnoxious, picked up at airport at 1030p, Sonic for the first time ever! summer of shakes, tots, jalapeno cheddar bites, Guest Inn hotel in Norman, pass in darkness the tornado damage around I-35 at the theatre where the medical center and post office were utterly annihilated.
Wed: Morning Waffle house for the first time ever! waffle, biscuit and egg sandwich, grits; Newcastle Shelter, meet Santana, unload trailer of clothes, sort them and integrate into clothes across tables, eat more Sonic, leave. Afternoon First Baptist Church shelter/supplies, lots of insurance trucks and aid stations outside, front desk help answer questions and guide people to their needs (many lost literally everything) many tarps, trash bags, food, shovels, etc., impromptu medical station set up by amazing doctor, Lupe the religious woman at the food stand. Evening to Moore City Hall meet with Jayme who is in charge of disaster response, hilarious and awesome and friendly and excited about recovers and that we're "real", Jayme calls me "the intern" (since I stayed quiet during the chat/training process), we're tired and stop at Sonic on the way home. I am legit exhausted even though everyone else had been working way harder than me.
Thurs: Morning ridiculous isolated linear band of thunderstorms aligned NW-SE through central OK right on top of Moore with crazy lightning and dumping a few inches of rain between 5-10am, just awful for the tornado-ravaged town, danishes in the lobby for breakfast, drive through flooded intersection and through destroyed houses to City Hall at 830am, I as "intern" am immediately put at the desk to answer calls on behalf of City Hall which is initially terrifying to me, at first frantically taking calls and writing things randomly in a disorganized mess before gradually settling down and getting my shit together made easier by the awesome folks working at City Hall (Jayme, Nancy, Sjonna, Armand, Diedre), office is chaotic as they plan for a press conference with OK Governor downstairs, as I settle down I begin to play around and post on moore.recovers.org updates for needs for volunteers/donations at various churches around town, calls from media outlets ranging from CBS evening news and CNN to a Jewish online interview program to Discovery Channel documentarians, organized on SmartSheet shared documents.
Friday: crossroads church signing everyone in with recovers.org, robo is chatty, city hall chat with Gary, oak crest church to train someone, waffle house!, back to crossroads to fund they had abandoned recovers probably because their operation was taken over by an outside group (oh well, can't win them all), then Starbucks to debrief, flight home. Alvin, Chris, and morgan are all awesome.
A few things I took away:
A few things I took away:
I was thoroughly impressed by the dedication and efficiency of the City Hall employees, who had to deal with such a ridiculous range of issues -- coordinating the response, organizing the press conference, responding to citizen needs, managing volunteers and employees -- all simultaneously. It was basically a whole office of Leslie Knopes, all friendly and peppy and excited despite being placed under an enormous amount of stress.
The PR work at City Hall was also fascinating, seeing how politics plays into the disaster response -- which one would expect to be among the most apolitical of issues. First, when the Governor misspoke and stated that contractors were now allowed to enter the affected area, this was not true, but because it was already stated on air this resulted in a great deal of confusion among both employees and contractors in the field (including several phone calls to City Hall) that had to be addressed right away. Second, city officials certainly were eager to make their presence known at any major press events -- an action that often is viewed with disdain, but is also understandable given that folks working this hard would prefer if the citizens that pay them are aware of how much they're helping. After all, City Hall did bring in 4 PR folks to help them craft their messages among other things.
