EDITOR’S NOTE: Medical providers from the Eastern
Shore left Thursday in Wellmobiles bound for hurricane-
effected areas. One volunteer, Susan Delean-Botkin, a
nurse practitioner at FamilyCare in Easton, will send regular
updates on her journey through areas devastated by
Hurricane Katrina. This is the third entry in her Katrina journal:
"Well, guess who is in the Gulf Coast? Beaches, gambling,
jazz and Creole food. It is hot, hot, hot.
The Red Cross in Montgomery, Ala., did not know
what to do with (he huge Wellmobiles. They were sent to
Jackson, Miss., and then to Brookhaven, Miss. There are
serious communication problems between national and
local offices. Not a problem. The party people got on the phone. Who do you call
when you are in a pinch? 'Dad, call the churches. This is
this is South!' So a call to St Andrew's Cathedral in Jackson,
Miss., produced an angel, Dawn Fairness, a 15-year veteran
of organizing medical missions overseas.
"You have what? A million dollars in mobile medical
vans and how much medication? Honey, you come on
down. My husband wants to barbecue this evening. Yall
have dinner and stay with us and then wept go down to
the Coast tomorrow,* she told us.
"Fanness said there are two relief stations set up in
schools, in the Long Beach area, the other in Ocean
Springs. They are handing out MREs (meals ready to
eat), water, and supplies. People were not forced to evacuate
from the Mississippi and Alabama coasts. Many
stayed and many are returning to make sense out of what
was their lives, she said.
The hospital is out of commission with no water, no electricity
and lots of surge damage, *So, we have a lot for you
to do,' said Fanness. 'Come on over!'
"Home was looking real good about then. That night we
heard about the casino that landed on top of the Holiday
Inn; the surge that covered Wal-Mart; the bank that was
totally washed away except for the vault that is still stand-
ing. One woman looked out her back window to a low
spot and saw twelve bodies floating.
"I am afraid, afraid of what we will find and what we
won't There has been no electricity here in Jackson for a
week. It just came back on. This is hundreds of miles'
from the coast. There will be no electricity, no water.
"Oh, well. Well do what we can: T am but one, but I am
one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something;
What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the
grace of God, I will do. Lord, what will you have me do?"
(Daughters of the King prayer)