I imagine more than a few of us are watching the coverage of Irene as it pounds the East Coast.
It got me to thinking about (The War Department's namesake)... Katrina.
The morning after Katrina made landfall I was working as a Manager Trainee at the Big Kmart in Cullman, AL.
I arrived at work about 6 am to get ready for the day's sales, when I noticed an elderly couple sitting on the curb out-side of the store. Since we didn't open for another couple of hours I went to see if they needed some help.
They had been driving all night and their car had run out of gas about a mile down I-65. They didn't know where they were going, they were just running away from the hurricane. They had walked that mile and the three more to the store. They said that KMart was the only thing that was familiar to them. They were going to ride out the storm, but their daughter had made them leave, and just as they were leaving the bridge over one of the branches of the delta near their home was washed away. It was the only way in or out of that area. Their daughter had stayed because her infant son was in the hospital... They had no news of her. They had gone as far as their car and their funds would take them.
I asked some of the ladies that had just come in to open the snack bar and I sent them to the local grocery and told them to buy the fixing's for a good country breakfast. They were very hungry. As the other's trickled in we pooled our money and bought them a prepaid phone and as much time as we could afford, (they managed to get a call through to their daughter. Their home was a total loss, but the rest of the family was fine. Then my boss came in and gave them a gift card so we could supply them with some clothes and other necessaries that they were unable to gather in their haste to escape. As with any small town, there are regular customers that come in as-sure-as clockwork and they all chipped in and managed a couple of hundred dollars cash for them. One of them worked at the local Red Cross, and arranged shelter.
I syphoned a couple of gallons from my truck and we went and retrieved their car, and I filled it up for them. Another customer took their car to the Goodyear he worked at, and they gave it a full service, fixed a few things including the AC and put a new set of brakes and tires on it for them.
When they arrived the only thing of value they had left was their daughters cell phone number on a piece of paper, and a POS old car.
When they left us for the Red Cross, they had hope.
That was a day I'll never forget.
Keep our fellow pipers and everyone else in the path of Irene in your thoughts, and help if you can.
The personal rewards cannot be measured.
