The story of one emergency shelter

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

From WRAL-TV (Raleigh)

Monday October 25, 1999 06:04 PM

"Battlefield Promotion" -- From Principal to Shelter Supervisor

TARBORO (WRAL) -- Last month, Tarboro High School was transformed into a shelter when Hurricane Floyd hit and put large parts of the town under water.

But most people probably don't know how difficult the situation was in the first 48 hours.

One principal was asked to open the doors of his school but then he took on a responsibility beyond his job description.

Tarboro High School principal Dennis Hart relishes being back at his normal school tasks. His duties seem simple after managing an impromptu emergency shelter as Hurricane Floyd hit.

Hart says he considered the people sent to his school to be his.

At daybreak, the city of Tarboro resembled an island. For the next two days, Hart and his school team served meals to 2800 flood victims, until school pantries were empty.

"On Sunday after we served breakfast, I didn't know where our next meal was coming from," Hart recalled.

The Red Cross couldn't get through the flood waters to reach them. Hart didn't know what more a school teacher could do.

"They had been through enough. I had seen people come off helicopters with only the clothes on their back," he remembered. "They didn't know where the rest of their family was. They didn't need to worry about where their next meal was coming from."

Picking up his cell phone, Hart called in the troops, literally.

After relaying the circumstances, the Gov. Jim Hunt, Sen. Jesse Helms and Gen. Hugh Shelton of the Joint Chiefs of Staff took action.

"I saw four great big Chinooks (helicopters) coming in with water hanging down in baskets and we had over 3,000 MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) that were on there and that was a wonderful sight. It was like, 'Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!'"

For nearly a month, the high school and the Red Cross provided a refuge for Edgecombe County flood victims.

"This is something you never, ever expect to do," Hart said. "You always see it on TV. It's happening to someone else. There are a lot of lessons learned."

Lessons they don't teach in school.

CP&L rewired a nearby street and returned power to the high school before nightfall that first Friday.

The Red Cross arrived shortly after the nearly 3,000 flood victims finished the rations delivered by the military.

Hart says the Tarboro High Shelter ran smoothly after tha

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 29, 1999

Answers

Thanks, Old Git. Now multiply this story to include EVERYTOWN USA. It ain't gonna be pretty. On the bright side...I hope to read about neighbors helping neighbors this coming January.

-- mwerks3 (mwerks3@yahoo.com), October 29, 1999.

The internet was desinged to sustain multiple nuclear attacks on a global scale. And yet "it's all going away in January", because a percentage of the computers may or may not have problems.

ya, right.

Funny thing is where ever I go people I talk to in large companies say they are done with Y2K and have moved on to other projects. The only place where with Apocalyptic fantasies about the end of technology gets spread is on the internet. How very ironic.

It never ceases to amaze me how common people can get SNAFU'ed so badly when it comes to things that are above their understanding. (I wonder if people also believed that little people lived inside telephones when they were first marketed).

-- (_@_._), October 29, 1999.


Hey- you with the no name,

where did you get this quote:

"...And yet "it's all going away in January",..."

make it up yourself?

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), October 29, 1999.


@....sorry to disagree with you, but it just ain't so. I see businesses in my area every day that are not done with remediation. Plenty have not even started.

-- (rickc@work.com), October 29, 1999.

No I didn't make it up myself, some other Doomer is fond of using that silly mantra as his/her handle.

Rick,

Well, I guess you MUST be seeing the glass as half empty because I have not come across one single entity that is worried in the least bit about Y2K. I'm talking about my bank, leasing companies, insurance companies, communications software companies, consulting firms, etc. etc. etc.

I live in Atlanta, I can give specific example if it makes you feel better. (ie. Media One, Lease Plan USA, ROI Corp, RMI, JES Inc.... and on and on).

-- (_@_._), October 29, 1999.



That's interesting - I live near the city of Atlanta, and I know of nothing in the city itself that HAS been fixed. Not only has the city not finished testing, they haven't finished remediating, nor finshed even their inventory or triage. In fact, the inventory list is tied up in a lawsuit by the mayor's office because the company didn't hire his designated contractor. So they don't even HAVE a list to begin remedation from.

Worse, they haven't even written contingency plans for the systems not complete. And they haven't drilled on any of the contingency plans - that haven't been written yet, nor funded completely.

(Possible exceptions: Delta gave a lot of money and people and technical assistance to the airport, and they only now got done (first week in October, 1999.)

But the mayor claimed in July that the airport was finished "completely remediated" - hmmmmn. Of course, he also claimed that the Atlanta airport was teh first one finished in the country - when Northwest Airlines (and Detroit) actually got through in April.

But since when have minor things like the facts got in the way of a Democratic politician in front of a camera?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 29, 1999.


Rob,

With all due respect, because I know you are a decent sort, if you can't find anything in Atlanta that has been fixed you must not be looking very hard.

-- (_@_._), October 29, 1999.


Robert, don't waste your time arguing with this "--@" troll. He is just here trying to cause trouble. Have you read some of his posts on other threads? He sounds like a "Y2K Pro" wannabe or maybe a "Chicken Little" wannabe. He's just a creep trying to cause trouble.

-- Ohio Bob (ohiobob@buckeyestate.com), October 29, 1999.

Thank you for that valuable input about the city of Atlanta , bob.

What would we ever do without you?

-- (_@_._), October 29, 1999.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ