Ask Red Cross staff member Heather Smith about volunteering in the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and what you'll hear is a little bit about the oppressive heat and humidity, the endless hours of work, the lack of clean running water and the devastation she witnessed—and a whole lot about the deep satisfaction she felt at being able to help so many people in their time need.

For the past three years, Heather has worked at the American Red Cross in Greater New York (ARC/GNY) as a Development Associate on a variety of fundraising projects—everything from handling donor acknowledgments to researching potential new donor companies. In the Gulf, she found herself serving the Red Cross in an entirely different way.

Heather was eager to begin this first volunteer assignment, having trained with Disaster Services Human Resources (DSHR) months earlier. She arrived in the Gulf on August 30, the day after Katrina struck, and spent most of the next eight days in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a small fishing and shrimping community that had been devastated by the storm.

There, she helped set up a shelter in the local Community Center. When she arrived, the Center had neither electrical power nor clean water. Heather and the other volunteers were thankful when the National Guard showed up with generators and got the air conditioning running. Plumbing, however, remained problematic. The fetid water was contaminated; volunteers and evacuees were warned never to use it. Portalets were set up outside the Center.

Heather was impressed that local residents from a little farther north had come to help out, as had people from the town itself.  "Even though they were hit hard, they were helping people who were harder hit,” she said.

One of her many tasks was to ride along in the Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) to distribute food and water. On her first ride-along, Heather was distressed to witness the havoc Katrina had wreaked—collapsed roofs, blown over trees, and homes destroyed by flooding.

But she was gratified that people were thrilled to see the ERV, and ran after the truck. Because the Red Cross does not allow volunteers to knock on people"s doors or go into their homes, the ERV volunteers told children on their bikes to let everyone know that the ERV would remain in the area for an hour.

The ERV stopped in each neighborhood twice a day, every day. Whatever food and water remained at the end of their run would be left for people to take.

Although the ERV staffers asked locals to come to the shelter, many chose to stay in tents on their lawns rather than leave their homes. “People had taken their things out of the houses and strewn them over their lawns to dry out,” Heather said. “They were trying to clean homes filled with standing water, mold, sludge, and other contaminants that made their attempts at cleaning dangerous, or even impossible.” She added, “It didn’t look at anyplace in America; it looked like a war-torn foreign country.”

Back at the shelter, Heather rose at 6 am each day to help make sure breakfast was ready by 7 am. Three big meals were served daily, including at least one hot meal, with food available throughout the day until 8 pm. In the beginning, the volunteers served Meals Ready to Eat (MREs). Later, they began to receive donations of food from restaurants further north. “At that point, we had plenty of food and it was good eating—ribs and southern cooking,” she reported appreciatively.

Because of the lack of running water, hygiene was a huge issue at the shelter. The volunteers were constantly cleaning. They required that everyone use hand sanitizer. “It was our way of trying to keep things sanitary,” said Heather.

Nevertheless, many clients came down with stomach illness, and another of Heather’s tasks was to make made sure that they received the medical attention they needed from the shelter’s volunteer EMTs and doctors.

“The Center became its own little community and we tried to turn it into a livable place,” said Heather. She added that residents of New Orleans and nearby parts of Louisiana arrived with their furniture in their vans; thanks to them, the shelter had a TV section, with one TV set up with children’s videos and another for adults. There was also a play area for kids, with lots of donated toys.  

Although she did not enjoy the constant feeling of being dirty and sleep deprived, Heather says she’d volunteer again in a minute. 

“I loved being able to connect with these different kinds of people I would never have met otherwise,” she says. “Knowing I was helping to make a horrible situation a little more tolerable for them was very rewarding.”