Volunteers Wrap Up Relief Efforts

Local volunteers are heading back to Santa Barbara after working the past several days in Louisiana and Texas aiding victims of Hurricane Katrina. Twenty-one volunteers from Hope Community Church, Westmont and the community worked through the day Wednesday, Sept. 14, in Houston before driving back to the West Coast. The group is expected to arrive in Santa Barbara Friday night, Sept. 16, at about 6 p.m. They left Westmont last Saturday morning and arrived in Shreveport early Monday morning.

"Wednesday, Sept. 14, volunteers transported people from the Reliant Center in Houston, Texas, to other shelters. The group arrived at the center at 3 a.m. and had been moving people out to make way for a weekend football game.

Tuesday, Sept. 13, the group worked at Hirsch Memorial Coliseum in Shreveport, La., preparing space for 250 more people that had been displaced by the hurricane. Westmont Head Baseball Coach Rob Crawford says they had to move the existing 1,200 evacuees at the shelter to make room.

“It was wild.” said Crawford. “The buses kept coming, but there’s just no space. It’s wall-to-wall people. They’re six inches from the next person on their inflatable mattress.”

American Red Cross officials warmly welcomed the group which was quickly put to work helping hurricane victims in a variety of ways. “We were getting closer to the (Hirsch) Coliseum and we never knew exactly what we were going to do; they’re constantly changing,” Crawford said. “The Red Cross looks at us and asks how many are there. She said, ‘We haven’t had this size of a group show up ever.’”

Some of the volunteers were put immediately to work in the kitchen, relieving a chef who had been working non-stop shifts. Other volunteers loaded food from a food bank and transported it to shelters in the Shreveport area. Volunteers also drove the Santa Barbara Foresters bus to Houston, Texas, where 80 families were waiting for a ride to Baton Rouge in hopes of finding their children and other family members displaced by the storm.

“Somehow they found out we were here,” he says. “The National Guard has asked us to come help with the bus and transportation. Some will work in the Astrodome, others will work to reunite family members.”

The bus trip has endured several minor bumps, including a blown tire outside of Dallas, Texas. Crawford says he was waiting for the bus at a nearby truckstop when he got the call about the flat tire. “It just so happened there’s a guy standing in the parking lot with a truck repair service,” Crawford said.