Digital Services in the Katrina Relief Efforts

At 11am, Friday September 2, 2005, 150 volunteers started with a very big and very empty Reliant Hall

Beginning the setup and learning how to assemble the cots.

AIM Volunteers during initial setup in Reliant Center

Digital Services John Moran, your humble author, notes some headway around noon.

I didn't leave the site that day until after 3am.

Onsite OB/GYN clinic for the arrivals, courtesy of Texas Womens Hospital in Houston.

This space turned into the onsite Triage and Emergency Care clinic.

7000+ Cots with personal hygiene kit and blankets, assembled and in place in 6 hours.

By midafternoon, the original 150 volunteers had grown to over 500 people making this possible.

Bellaire High School Senior Daniel Wisniewski walked on around 7pm and became my personal assistant for the night.

He had school all day and a football game the next day and still came out to help overnight with the setup and the refugees.

We arranged the security search team and set up control areas for the food services.

Go Cardinals! He was a great addition to the team and helped me tremendously.

With over 12,000 + housed reasonably comfortably in the Astrodome;

Σ some people may have dreamed of playing professional sports on the Astrodome field

while the real champions are the Houston volunteers and the City who gave of themselves to help thousands of strangers in need.

Russian TV news crew on the scene in the Astrodome.

I was happy to explain that what they were seeing was the City of Houston and the Red Cross efforts.

They thought it was federal. Ha! Not!

Houston Independent School District kitchens and Aramark and Sysco brought on the food.

Hot catered dinner for 12,000+

A group of happy servers during a lull. Dinner that Friday nite in the Astrodome was fajitas and mexican rice, not MREs

The ladies said some of our Louisiana friends had never heard of nor had fajitas before.

Welcome to Texas, Cajuns!

The closed circuit system in the dome was tuned to KTRK-ABC for news and entertainment.

Security checks of the first arrivals after the Reliant Hall was approved for occupancy.

After escaping hell on earth, most of the survivors were happy just to sleep in air conditioned clean areas.

Mr. Jesse, security from the old Bon Ton Room and his pals man a drink cart set up in the food area of Reliant.

There were cans from Anheuser-Busch, but they were the ultimate in light beer, pure water.

Donate to the American Red Cross! Here is where the money goes.

Bundles of donated clothes come into Reliant Hall.

They must be manually sorted by sex and size.

Children's clothes ages 0-3years, sorted and ready for distribution.

Build it and they will come...

and they will come

and they will come.

I had a 4 year old boy come up to me, showed me his toy basketball and then said...

"I want to go home"

Let me tell you, that really hurt.

and as painful as that was, here are the results of the cumulative efforts :

This mother with 2 year old boy and 3 year old girl had little when they arrived.

The crib/playpen, the dual stroller and clothing were all provided by the generosity of the citizens of Houston.

It was not going unappreciated, and this is just one story of thousands.

Now, if you have gotten this far and are able,

PLEASE HELP.

Give your time to the relief efforts, there is plenty of work to be done.

If you don't have the time or are not in proximity, donate to the American Red Cross.

Thank you.

DIGITAL SERVICES RECORDING

Houston, TX.