The Rolling Home
April 2009
Here we are, April 2009 already.
Where have we been for the last year? Well, frankly, we have been
busy working for FEMA. John was deployed in late March of 2008 to
Little Rock, Arkansas for a flooding and tornado event. He spent
about a month doing preliminary damage assessments in several counties
in Arkansas. Then he managed several mobile disaster recovery
centers at various spots around the state. At the end of
June, he left Arkansas after purchasing $2700 worth of new tires for
the RV.
In early July, after a quick visit to relatives in Indiana, John was
deployed to Springfield, Illinois for part of the midwest flooding
event. He worked on finding rental resources for disaster
victims, found sites for FEMA supplied mobile homes, got lot leases
signed, did site inspections, leased in applicants to mobile homes and
generally did whatever else was asked of him.
About the third week of August, Libby and John decided that they had
enough of working, it had been almost five months of continuous
work. They demobilized from the Illinois disaster and headed for
SouthWest Texas. While driving through Fort Worth, the phone
rang. Yep, it was FEMA again. They wanted John to go to the
Rio Grande Valley to work in the Individual Assistance Housing Group
for Hurricane Dolly. John promised Libby that they would be home
by mid October. Dolly, while doing considerable damage to some
areas of the the Valley wasn't all that big a disaster. He was
confident that his work would be done and that the Fort would once
again
see The Rolling Home docked at her home port. On the way to
McAllen, Libby and John stopped for two nights at Fort Clark. The
vehicles needed to be inspected and they wanted to see the Casita if
only for a brief moment!
Arriving in McAllen, John was asked to change directions and instead of
working in the Housing group, he was annointed the Disaster Recovery
Center Group Supervisor. That meant that he had 8 DRCs to manage
scattered around the lower Rio Grande Valley from Brownsville to
McAllen. This turned out to be one of the better jobs John has
had with FEMA. It was fun and educational too. However, it
was not to last. In mid September, Hurricane Ike was spinning up
in the Gulf of Mexico. Ike's projected landfall was very
uncertain and during the second week of September, Ike was projected to
hit in the somewhere between Brownsville and Corpus Christi. On
9.10.08, the decision was made to bug out of the Valley and move our
operations to Austin. John closed his remaining DRCs and sent
everyone home on an emergency rotation to get them out of harm's
way. Since Hurricane Gustav had recently come ashore in
Louisiana, John wanted to make sure he had enough folks to pick up the
work on Dolly and any new issues arising from Ike. By putting the
folks on an emergency rotation, John would keep his staff on board so
they could be recalled when the work started up after landfall of Ike.
Since John was part of the essential staff for this disaster, he was
moved from McAllen to Austin. When Ike made landfall in east
Texas, John was told he was now the Deputy Branch Director for
Individual Assistance for Hurricane Ike. This now turned into
John's fifth disaster deployment in a row. So much for being home
by mid October.
Ike has turned out to be the third or fourth costliest disaster in U.S.
History. It is the largest in the State of Texas. At one
point there were 46 Disaster Recovery Centers open
simultaneously. The total number of DRCs opened in this event was
somewhere on the order of 110-120. There were 782 Individual
Assistance Employees at the peak of the disaster work load. John
deployed them all. It was an interesting experience. Phone
calls as late as midnight and as early as 6 a.m. were the norm for a
while. Folks who are deployed sometimes forget about time zones
and just pick up the phone to call and see where they are going to wind
up. John learned a valuable lesson from this experience.
Make someone else the primary contact!
One of John's first tasks with Hurricane Ike besides deploying folks
was to get a couple of people into a helicopter to do a quick fly over
of the coastal area of east Texas. He volunteered to go himself
but the Branch Director kept telling him he had to pick two other folks
and he could not go because there was too much work at the Joint Field
Office. He whined to no avail. Eventually, he found two
folks who did the flyer in a Border Patrol helicopter. Oh well
maybe next time.
The staff put in minimum 12 hour days often much longer for many weeks
at the beginning of this disaster. 7 days a week, for weeks on
end gets very old after not too long a time, but when you put it into
perspective, remembering that the storm victims are out there suffering
from a lack of just about everything, you just suck it up and keep
going.
In December, the permanent FEMA staff returned to their normal
duties at the regions headquarters and John became the Individual
Assistance Branch Director for DR 1791 TX, Hurricane
Ike. All of those almost 800 people now worked for him and it was
an interesting experience to say the least. Concerns about
housing all of the applicants who needed help, personnel issues and
normal issues when dealing with so many different agencies, Federal,
State and Local took up all of his time.
When he demobilized after exactly 12 months, five disasters and three
different states, he was ready to head back to Fort Clark and finish
the Casita that he and Libby started in November of 2007.
On the RV front it was an interesting year also. We bought new
tires in Little Rock Arkansas in June. A quick $2700. We
had to replace the front AC unit in Springfield, IL, another
$800. While in Austin and on the way back from a two week
rotation home, the alternator went out on the Discovery. We had a
Federal Holiday in February so we zipped over to the local Freightliner
shop in Austin and had the tranny fluid changed, the air dryer filters
changed and a new alternator installed. Another
$1100. Still, repairs are much cheaper than a new rig
so we just do what we have to do.
The Discovery is fast approaching 10 years old. We have almost
83,000 miles on it and it could use a paint job. The main slide
out motor should probably be replaced and we don't think the rear AC is
long for this world. It still serves us well and we are likely to
keep it for several more years. It has been our home since
September of 1999. Now that we have a small stick and steel
house, it becomes a secondary home for us, but John's FEMA deployments
make sure it is used frequently and for way too long!
We need to head to FL this summer to visit children and grandchildren
(not necessarily in that order) and then go to Gaffney for some more
maintenance on the rig at Freightliner, visit our friends near
Blairsville, GA and prepare for John's next FEMA deployment.
After all, we are firmly in the tornado season and the next hurricane
season is less than two months away.
We have been back at Fort Clark for two weeks now. The Casita is coming
along. John is about to set the tile in the shower. After that, its
some minor trim work and a few touch up paint jobs and the place will
be finished. Then we can start thinking about moving our shed out from
under the roof over and expand the house out in that direction. (next
year)
Libby wants John's computer and radio room to be part of the house and
not a shed near the house.
The Fort is such a wonderful place. While we were deployed over the
last year, a new street was added to our Unit. Three families are
building RV pads and small homes on that street. Several more lots have
been sold there and over time that portion of Live Oak Circle will be
developed and more folks will discovery the best kept secret in Texas,
Fort Clark Springs.
The new Creekside cafe is open and a larger restaurant is promised for
the old Officers Club by June 1. The golf course is looking much
better. The installation of a sprinkler system on most of the fairways
certainly helps keep the grass green and the brutal summer sun at
bay. Many of the historic buildings have been painted and
restoration of them is an ongoing project for our Historic Society
members.
We attended the annual members meeting last Saturday in the 75 year old
Post Theater. After that, we went to a lecture at the Palisado building
where one of our neighbors read a journal of a 300 wagon expedition
from Fort Inge (Uvalde, TX) to El Paso. The wagon train journey
lasted almost three months to cover the roughly 500 miles from Uvalde
to El Paso. There were 4000 animals, 300 wagons and I don't
remember how many humans involved. Skirmishes with local Indian tribes,
heat, terrain and a myriad of other obstacles made this a fascinating
journey to hear about. It took 5 days for the wagon train to go
from Ft Inge to the current location of Ft Clark, in Brackettville. (of
course Ft. Clark and Brackettville were not here in 1850) That is
a journey of roughly 40 miles which we do in about 45 minutes today.
On April 1, our friends Rainier and Elizabeth Vils from Switzerland
arrived at the RV park here at the Fort. They are now permanent
residents of the USA. It took them 15 years to get their resident
cards. Of course we have a number of folks coming through the Fort who
wind up living in the States without formal arrangements.
Such is life on the border.
Anyway, the Vils purchased a beautiful Monaco DP last summer from Lazy
Days. Its a 43 footer, quad slides etc. Unfortunately for
them, shortly after they took delivery, Monaco filed Chapter 11
bankruptcy and they no longer have a warranty on the coach.
Things are getting fixed but its not easy for them. They will
depart on 4.3 heading for Marathon, El Paso and St. David, AZ by
Sunday. We were visited by them when we were workamping in Utah
in 2003. They would come to the US and rent a Cruise America
class C and drive around the country. They did this for 15 years!
Jerry and Kit Bertelsen are still here but are leaving around June 1 to
go to Gaffney where Jerry will be attending Freightliners RV
class. Jerry is the fellow that John worked with in the
Martinsville, IN school system in 1970. We ran into each other
several years ago in the RV park here at the Fort. Now both
families call Fort Clark home.
Dave and Sally Stribling our buds from Alaska are due to arrive here
next week for a visit. Our daughter, her hubby and three kids are
supposed to roll in around June for a visit, so we will be at Fort
Clark at least until June of this year. Then we need to hit the road
and do some traveling before fuel gets out of site again and before
FEMA asks for John to deploy to some new disaster in a far away place.
5.9.09
Update:
We are now in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for a FEMA wildfire
disaster. John flew from San Antonio to Little Rock, AR in April
to do preliminary damage assessments for FEMA for the Mena, AR
tornado. There was a considerable amount of damage done to that
small community. About 300 homes were either destroyed or had
major damage. The tornado was about a half mile wide and was on
the ground for about 10 miles. It went right through the middle
of Mena. At the same time tornadoes touched down in Du Queen in
Sevier County, in Miller County, near Texarkana also in Ashley County
over in the extreme southeast corner of the state. John did PDAs
in Polk (Mena) County and Miller County. He was the team lead for
these assessments and sent another team to Sevier County. The
state decided to look at Ashley County after a Federal declaration was
in place. (that happened and Ashley has been added to this
disaster) John was going to head for Little Rock and work this
tornado event but was redirected to Oklahoma City for an anticipated
declaration for wildfires that occured at the same time.
Dave and Sally did arrive at The Fort and spent almost two weeks there
with us. Then, when it looked like John was going to Little Rock,
we all moved to Georgetown, TX to wait the declaration. After a
few days there and a couple of meals with our mutual friends, the
Holders, we moved on to Waco. We revisited the Texas Ranger
Museum with the Striblings. While there, John got his orders to
OKC and Sally to Little Rock. This will be her first FEMA
deployment.
We parted ways and the next day, we moved on to Gainesville, TX to
await the declaration. The night we arrived, we were greeted by
12 inches of rain and several severe thunderstorms. We stayed at
the Outlet Mall in Gainesville, (they have a campground) for four days
and last Sunday, moved on to OKC.
We have been here six days and still no declaration. Hopefully,
that will happen on Monday and we can get to work helping these folks.