Just another random collision in space-time

UPDATE: Sorry, my friend Warchicken is at SLU in Hammond, which is another State school, but not the same as LSU in Baton Rouge.

So yesterday I heard from Warchicken that he's ok, and that he's still at LSU. Also yesterday I got an update from my brother-in-law Jon, who is an EMT deployed with FEMA. I'll let you read it and see where the coincidence is:

Sunday, August 28, 2005 4:32 PM
So, I got "the call" - I will be deploying with my DMAT to a staging area in Houston this afternoon. Jen and I are grabbing some lunch, then its off to our operation center for pre- deployment processing. I don't know how the communications infrastructure will be at the deployment site, but I'll try to keep in touch as best as I can. I love you all and will do my best to stay safe and make y'all proud.

Monday, August 29, 2005 3:26 PM
To recap: I'm one of a half-dozen folks schlepping our team equipment to a staging area in Houston, where we'll link up with the rest of our team. The feds being, well, the feds, we may ve diverted to another site at any time. We drove until 0400 this morning, slept until about 10m and we were on the road circa 1030. Since I'm kinda brain-fried, I'm going to break my situation down into a nice, simple list of pros and cons:
Pros:
Finallt getting the call after 3 years of training.
Deploying with a positively crackerjack crew.
Driving a 24 foot truck with red lights and siren.
Driving said vehicle at 80mph and not having to feel guilty about it.
Managing to sneak in a quick run this morning.
Not having to fly commercial airlines.
Verbal sparring matches with my crew
Playing around with the truck-to-truck radio
Making gratuitous references to CW McCall's 1970-something hit, "Convoy"
Cons:
Having to drive all fracking night.
Having to drive the afore-mentioned vehicle up the Grapevine.
Hearing for the seventy-third time, "You're riding with Bill? Shit, you're gonna find yourself in the reefer compartment."
Not having any real AC to speak of.
Looks liike we're not going to stop tonight in an effort to make Houston by tomorrow morning. Since can trade off we should do okay. There is talk of getting us a police escort through the rest of CA and AZ. That will surely find its way into the Pro column.

Monday, August 29, 2005 10:51 PM
So, the day is far from over, regretably, but I have some downtime, so here is my list of pros and cons for the day. This whole affair has a "widely variable tempo of operations." Roughly translated, we're very much in eat, sleep, and pee when and where you can, 'cause you don't know when your next chance will be. It's kinda hairy, but we're holding up well.
Pros:
I've never seen a rattlesnake in person before, outside of a zoo...
I took a great powernap this afternoon.
I've never been to the desert before - it's actually really beautiful.
I managed to find vegetarian chow throughout the day.
I got to say, "Houston? We have a problem," and mean it.
I got to deploy my full arsenal of abbreviations and acronyms, with people who understand them without further explaination.
Cons:
For reasons I'm really not supposed to go into, we spent WAY too much time looking at the nice, beautiful desert.
I think a couple of folks on my crew considered mutiny at some length.
I've never seen a rattlesnake in person before, outside of a zoo....

Thursday, September 1, 2005 10:13 AM
JJ's a bit swamped right now, so we asked me to pass along word that he's currently at the Superdome and he's ok. I don't know a lot more than that, but he does have at least sporadic data reception on his phone so he can get emails in and out.

Thursday, September 1, 2005 1:45 PM
As y'all may have already heard, the Superdome has become, in effect a riot zone. Things started turning ugly this morning, and when the integrity of our security perimeter began to flag, we ran like hell, leaving our gear and patients behind. Our team made it out just fine, and we're falling back to Baton Rouge presently. I'll keep y'all posted on my further adventures.

Thursday, September 1, 2005 6:46 PM
The team is in Baton Rouge at LSU. The University has been putting them up and has been GREAT (emphasis JJ's) about helping as best they can. JJ and team are headed to Walmart to resupply. The government will buy them essentials, but they'll have to shell out for some stuff. Then it's out to dinner, a good night's sleep, and tomorrow they'll decide as a team if they want to stay on for another mission (the nature of which will be decided in the meantime). Send good thoughts their way -- it's been rough.

You can get more information on JJ's team's activities at http://www.dmatca6.org/