I worked at the call center again today for a few hours. All the calls I took were from people that were looking for their families. The Red Cross traditionally helps people find their relatives after a disaster, but in this case the disaster site is so devastated that they can't even begin to collect that information.
Hilary Clinton came into the call center to make a speech. I guess it was a good photo op for her to be in the middle of the call center floor at a podium talking to the press, but I guess anything that encourages people to donate funds or volunteer is good. I will give her credit for handling a reporter who asked something about her opponent for her U.S. Senate seat, Jeanine Pirro, by responding "I'm sorry, but now is not the time to discuss politics."
It's going to take years and years to recover from this and I can't even imagine the amount of money this is going to cost.
I hate to even talk about my feelings because whenever I start to get upset I want to smack myself -- I've got food, clean water and a place to sleep. So I'm not asking for sympathy or complaining when I say that it is often painful to talk to the clients. I have not spoken to any victims yet, just the relatives and a few evacuees. I had one client who was choking back tears when she called and then I had the same problem when she said, "Thank you so much, it feels so good to just talk to someone."
For me it brought back a lot of memories of 9/11 -- those first few hours when news reports only said "World Trade Center and surrounding buildings" were destroyed or damaged and I didn't know if one of those buildings was my apartment building. It also brought back memories of trying frantically to get through to my friend Denise, because I feared that her son-in-law was killed. Sadly, my fears were confirmed.
Tomorrow I'll be in again at 8:00 a.m. Report back tomorrow tonight.
If you haven't already donated funds to the Red Cross, please, please, please do so now.
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