Missouri Disaster Relief, Week 1

To quote Bad Boys II: Shit just got real.  We got rerouted to Joplin Missouri to help with the relief and cleanup efforts here, and it’s been quite a week. 

((Sunday)):

Sunday night, Joplin Missouri was hit with one of the most devastating tornadoes to date.  The storm ravaged the town, leaving a six-mile long pile of debris where there were once houses and schools.  8000 buildings were damaged or destroyed.  At least 136 people were killed (44 are still missing) making it the deadliest tornado in well over 60 years. 

((Monday)):

We left Denver early, still destined for Saint Louis.  Somewhere in Kansas, we got the call that we were going to Joplin instead.  We stayed that night in Lawrence Kansas and caught up on news from the storm.  The extent of the destruction was horrifying and it was a little intimidating to know that we would be there the following day.

((Tuesday)):

We arrived in Joplin in the morning.  Some 36 hours had passed since the storm had hit, and the volunteer center and the Red Cross shelter were swamped.  I spent Tuesday working at the shelter and at a nearby donation center.  The donation center shut down around five for another tornado warning.  All the residents staying in the shelter were moved into the basement, and we spent the evening in the basement of the volunteer center, waiting out the storm.  Quite a Missouri welcome.

((Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)):

Wednesday was the first day I actually saw the fallout from the tornado.  The pictures coming out of the city are harrowing, to be sure, but they really don’t capture the scope of it all.  Cars were flipped over, trees were pulled out of the ground, houses were ripped to shreds, and all that stuff was visible as far as you could see.  The wreckage goes on for miles and miles.  Even outside of the worst stretches of it, lots of homes were hit by falling trees.  It’s amazing what 200 mile per hour winds can do.

I got moved to the field on Wednesday, and I spent the rest of the week there leading groups of volunteers clearing debris.  We were working on the fringes of the tornado’s path, cutting up fallen trees and moving slash and debris to the street for the city to pick up.

Working with the volunteers has been awesome.  I led with one other Americorps employee, and we had anywhere from 40 to 90 volunteers at our disposal.  The homeowners were very grateful and it was great to see how empowered the volunteers felt to be helping out.  With a workforce that size, it was a little stressful keeping them all busy and keeping them organized, but at the end of every day, we had accomplished a ton, and we heard some amazing stories from the homeowners and volunteers.

The days were long (14- 17 hrs of work), but they were affirming too. Without a doubt, this has been one of the most intense weeks of my life.

Joplin got hit real bad, and they are going to need lots more help for years to come.  Here’s a link if you would like to donate and help the red cross meet their immediate needs: 

http://www.redcross-ozarks.org/joplin/

Thanks!

Missouri Disaster Relief, Prologue

Alright, change of plans.  Last time I wrote on here, we were preparing for a fourth round project in Boulder Colorado, full of trailbuilding, concerts, and leisure.  Since then, the middley parts of our country got hit with a record number of tornadoes, with over 900 in the month of April.  On April 27^th alone, there were 164, killing nearly 300 people.  In light of all that tragedy, NCCC is sending a bunch of teams (including ours) to the front lines of the devastation in Alabama, Arkansas and Missouri.  Oh, and the Mississippi River is flooding.  There’s that too.  It’s a disaster, wrapped in a calamity, nestled in a box of shitty shit.  Boulder can wait.

This coming Monday, we head to St. Louis to clear debris and work at a call center.  We’ll be sleeping on cots, working twelve hour days (or longer), six days a week.  It’s bound to be the most difficult, horrible, and intense part of this year, but I’m really happy to be going.  Boulder doesn’t really need our help, but St. Louis really does. That's why we're here in the first place- to help- and I'm eager to do what I can.  Plus, they have that big archy thing there, which is neat.

I’m a little short on pictures (and levity) this week, so I’ll end with a few postcards. 

According to the back of this postcard, this whale is a waterpark along Route 66.  Bring your own slide.  And your own fun.  (Thanks Katie V and Patrick Q)

Thanks to Erika Whittaker for this one.  Another purrr-fect day at the meow-ntain.  I hope he wore a warm cat pelt.

Finally, thanks to Jess Kaari for this siren.  Apparently I went to all the wrong places when I was in Arizona.

More soon. On to St. Louis!

Arizona ACE, Epilogue

We got back from Lake Mead today and we're headed to Colorado Friday.  It was another great hitch.  Just like last time, we were putting in barbed wire fence and camping right near the lake.  Unlike last time, we ran over a 12 foot Joshua Tree with our truck.  Variety is the very spice of life.  Time to pack!

Our time in Arizona has been pretty spectacular. Ever since we got here, I was reminded of an old Louis L’Amour book that my college roommate Hans loaned me.  So I read another one last week.  Here are some pictures from our time in Arizona, all captioned with quotes from “Kilkenny” by Louis L’Amour.  Louis is way more eloquent than I am. And badass.

((ARCHES NATIONAL PARK))

To the high valleys then, came a lone rider, a man who rode with the caution born of riding long on strange trails in a land untamed and restless with danger

It was a desolate land, a jumbled heap of uptilted, broken ledges, enormous basins, knife-like, serrated ridges and toppling towers of sandstone.  The sun climbed and grew hot, weirdly eroded sandstone danced like demons in the heat-waved air

((HITCH 1: HACK CANYON))

Although he appreciated the towns and the comforts they offered, he had grown accustomed to living in the wilds and could do it.

It was slow, bitterly hard work, but he enjoyed it.  There was no sight or sound of anything man had done but what he did with his own hands.

All three were unshaven and had obviously been riding hard and long for they had that lean, hungry look of men off the trail.

((GRAND CANYON))

His face went white and he felt his breath go out of him.  Swiftly he glanced right and left.  On either side were the broken but unscalable walls of the canyon and behind him for more than a mile were the same canyon walls.

The scene was shocking in its majesty, breathtaking in its power

((HITCHES 2 & 3: LAKE MEAD))

He got to his feet, running his fingers through his dark hair which was all awry.  He must look like hell.  Needing a shave, tired, red-eyed and hair all on end.  He wondered aloud, how could a woman ever love such a man?

“Trouble?” The fellow looked up through eyes squinted with pain.  “I got trouble.”

Yes. Here he would stop. Here he would cease being the restless drifter he had become, a man fleeing from a reputation, fleeing from the reputation of a killer.  But in this place he would stay, and he would find peace... if they let him

Arizona ACE, Week 6

Carnage. Absolute carnage. 

That’s how our British friend Adam described his trip to Las Vegas a few weeks back.  This weekend was Spring Break for Americorps, so a bunch of us (12 americorps-ers, from 3 different teams + 8 of our European friends from ACE) went to Vegas for some carnage of our own.  

We also took a day trip to the Hoover dam for a dam tour and some dam pictures.  All in all, a dam good weekend.

In other news, we found out what our next (and last (!!!)) Americorps project is going to be.  And we got another winner.  We’ll be returning to Colorado, this time a few miles outside of Denver: to Boulder.  The work is going to be conservation (like our current AZ project), so building trails and working outside.  For the first half of the project, we’ll be living and working in Boulder.  The second half, we’ll be camping and working week-long stints all around Colorado.  I’m not entirely sure what to expect from next round, but I’m really excited to be in Colorado for the summer.  Lots of sun, concerts, baseball games, and hiking.  Up until that starts, we’ve got one last hitch, once again at Lake Mead doing fencing. 

Then it’s time to make like a tree and leaf. 

Time to make like a ball and bounce.    

Time to make like a banana and split.
Time to make like a baby and head out.
Okay, I'm done now...
...

...Time to make like a bowel and move.  

Arizona ACE, Week 5

Well, we made it through the budget cuts!  I think.  They passed a budget for the rest of the year, and we didn’t get sent home yet, so that’s good news.  Right? The $38.5 billion that was cut hit other programs, so Americorps is safe for the rest of the year.  The EPA took a big hit, which will show all those snobby trees and plants. Your free ride stops here, environment.

Anyway, with our jobs secure, we returned to work. This time we were doing fencing at Lake Mead (which is the lake that the Hoover Dam holds back).  It was a vastly different experience than our time in Hack Canyon.  We stayed at a campground (with showers! And water!) and our group was much bigger (37 people instead of 14).  The first few days, we did mostly hauling; carrying t-posts, cement, and wire to the fence. 2 miles through the desert.

The goal was to build a big barbed wire fence to keep out cattle, but I have no idea what kind of cow would ever want to live here.  Most of the green out there was cacti and the temperature was in the 80’s and 90’s the whole week.  Also, there were plenty of these guys around:

The back half of the week, four of us were put in charge of running the pionjar (pronounced: poon-jar).  The pionjar is a gas-powered jack-hammer and we needed it to drill holes for the t-posts into rocky sections.  The first two days, the pionjars we brought out to the rocks didn’t work, so we did a lot more repairs and struggling against the pull-cord than we did actual drilling.  By the end of the week, our 37 man crew had pounded posts along 2.5 miles of fence and strung wire a mile and a half.  We, meanwhile, had drilled 22 holes. Or about 150 yards.  Accomplishments!

One more hitch with ACE (likely an encore at Lake Mead) and then our time in Arizona is over.  That means that our Americorps year is almost ¾ finished. I’m starting to hear the fat lady.  She’s warming up for her aria.

Arizona ACE, Week 4

No new budget news, but we did make a trip the Grand Canyon this Sunday/Monday and it deserved its own update.  We're on break from ACE until Wednesday, and we lucked into a reservation at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon for Sunday night (some combination of snowy weather at the top and fears of the park shutting down during the budget drama).

We hiked down South Kaibab trail (6.3 miles) on Sunday.  We took alot of pictures, so I'll let the them do the talking:

Monday, we hiked back up Bright Angel trail (9.5 miles).  With an elevation change of almost a mile, Monday was a beast of a hike.

There's more pictures from our hike and our time in Arizona here. 

Fingers crossed for Americorps during the budget cuts this Thursday!

Arizona ACE, Week 3

What a weird week.  We dodged a bullet (federal shutdown) but we dodged our way into a bear cave (big budget cuts). And we’re wearing a meat suit.  And an “I hate bears” t-shirt. If Americorps is to exist at all by this Friday, we better hope the bear is hibernating.  (This metaphor got weird.)

The threat of a government shutdown came and went on Friday.  Americorps is a federally funded program, making me one of the 800,000 employees who would have been furloughed (put on unpaid leave).  Congress came to an agreement with less than an hour left before the current budget extension was set to expire.  By that point we had packed all our things here in Flagstaff and made plans for a return trip to Denver.  (A furlough would have meant staying in the dorms with no pay and nothing to do. Spendover! Super fun!)

Friday’s extension carries our funding through Thursday, but another $38 billion is set to be slashed, and it is entirely possible that Americorps will get cut.  I guess it’s nice to have avoided furlough, but getting fired by my country would suck worse.  Do I get a pink slip or is it star-spangled? 

C’mon Christracker, cheer up.

At this point, we have no control over what happens this coming week.  They tell us we’re going on hitch to do fencing Wednesday, but at this point, who knows.  Our last hitch got cancelled because of looming budget concerns, and even if we still have jobs come Thursday, this hitch could be canceled for money reasons too.

Anyway... Enough of that sad-sack eeyore budget bullshit. Here’s some pretty postcards!

Thanks to Patrick and Anna from Water 7 for this one.  It’s Clinton’s cat, just hardballin’ the press.

This one comes from Nick Ptacek up in Seattle

Also, I got this one from my Aunt Barb for my birthday.

Hey Tea Party: what up