Over 6,500 people evacuated from Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina walked through this door. The first stop for help was the Greater Chicago Area Chapter of the American Red Cross. I volunteered for the Red Cross in this reception center and met people evacuated from places like Slidell, Lexington, Biloxi, New Orleans, and Metarie. Some were double evacuees: they had been evacuated to Texas by Hurricane Katrina only to be evacuated again by Hurricane Rita to Illinois. This is a journal of sorts to introduce you to the people that you help when you donate to the Red Cross. I saw loneliness, relief, sadness, gratefulness, symptoms of trauma, expressions of faith, and grief. And I got a hug.

I am a Red Cross Disaster Mental Health (DMH) Technician. Red Cross volunteers generally have a specific function and location in a reception center but DMH does not. Our job is to support the victims of disaster and to support Red Cross volunteers. As rewarding as it is to serve people in need, it is also stressful. My job is what it says it is: mental health, not mental illness. People come to the Red Cross for practical assistance first. Healing of emotional damage, the ravages of trauma and grief, take time. Most evacuees, besides a little dazed and tired, were in "task" mode: going about the business of meeting basic needs. Sometimes mental health is a hot meal and a place to lay your head.

The little stuffed toy in the background of this page below introduces you to the first family I met. Nasir, with a full beard and immaculate traditional Muslim clothes, was sitting with his wife, also dressed traditionally with her head covered in a scarf, and a sweet 7 year old girl who was wearing, as I was taught to say as a kid, "her Sunday best." The family was dignified and patient and kind, but the shuffle from one table to the next and the intervening wait in chairs lined up for that purpose was taking its toll on the girl, who was squirming. Mom was doing her best to keep her still, which as a parent I know is a losing battle. There was a daycare center at the other end of the building, but I suspected that if I was alone in a strange place I wouldn't feel terribly comfortable leaving my child with strangers, so I trotted over to daycare and they gave me a goodie bag (storybook, crayons, coloring book) and a little stuffed animal. I asked Nasir if I could give a gift to his daughter and he thanked me. She dove into the bag, glancing up to say, "thanks," at her mother's prompt, and they all smiled. Sometimes mental health is the smile of a child and the preservation of dignity.

Occasionally Red Cross Caseworkers would call me over to talk with someone. Regina sat with me at the table with her Caseworker and talked about being on the bridge to the convention center in New Orleans waiting for help. No doubt she saw infants and elderly die and felt the fear and despair of that place. She declined to talk to me so the Caseworker encouraged her to seek the support of the Chaplain in the reception center. Later I saw Regina praying with the Chaplain while wiping tears from her eyes. Sometimes mental health is found in your faith.

It was slow for a little while one day and then a number of people showed up with nothing more than the clothes on their back. Part of the job of the Red Cross is to make sure that donations are spent properly and we had to go through a process of verifying they were evacuated from the affected area. My site supervisor Sarah asked if I wouldn't mind helping out, so I volunteered. Linda, the weary woman in front of me had a very common last name and a simple address search gave us too many results. I encouraged her not to give up on us and tell us more about her neighborhood. She was able to describe a place where she used to shop and Sarah was finally able to locate a store where she shopped in New Orleans, right where she said it was. Twenty minutes later a Caseworker waved me over. We pulled up chairs in a corner and spoke. Linda didn't know where all of her children were. In the last month her mother had died. Now she had lost her home and was a stranger in a strange place. She was ashamed to be crying in public in front of people she didn't know. I assured her we were OK with her tears. In the Red Cross we even have a few of our own. I also reminded her that I was the guy who gave her the hard time about having no ID, so it wasn't like we were complete strangers. The Red Cross was building an ever-growing database of evacuees to help families unite and I suggested that she could use that service to help search for her children. We held hands, she cried and shared about her mother, and we talked about the anger and loneliness of grief. I remembered the day my own mother was buried. Linda looked into my eyes and we spoke of the paths our lives had taken to this moment and we knew we would never be strangers again. Sometimes mental health is connecting with one other person who is comfortable with your pain.

NAMES IN THESE STORIES HAVE BEEN CHANGED
TO PROTECT RED CROSS CLIENT PRIVACY.