Gimme shelter

I am gladly amazed how quickly the city of Birmingham has embraced its new residents. Yesterday I spent a few hours at one of our local shelters downtown at the civic center with K and it was fairly chaotic, but there is also a nice sense of community there among the survivors and volunteers. The main room, the size of a large gymnasium, where the evacuees are staying has a few hundred cots on the floor and different areas set up like a fair for the survivors. Although it is makeshift at the moment, this part of the civic center is like a small city now. There is a pharmacy, a salon with free haircuts, manicures and pedicures, a playspace for little kids that has a padded floor and is marked off with a baby fence. There is also a clothing area, a food area and an area just for kids with clothes, toys, diapers, formula and the space all these supplies take up is massive. Each of these areas takes up the space of a convenience store.

As I predicted, the kids I saw were happy. I played Hungry Hungry Hippos with a four-year-old named Trey and a toddler named Rasheed. For the kids its a lot like summer camp. There are many activities set up for them with volunteers to help out, toys, games, ping-pong, basketball, indoor jungle gyms, movies to watch, computer games. In addition, musicians and clowns have come in to entertain the them along with face painters and balloon artists. Saturday a large group of kids went to the McWane Center (local children's science museum) with volunteers and today a big group went to the zoo. Ticket and meals costs are, of course, all donated.

The pain in the eyes of the adults is very visable. They physically look like they have been through hell. Most have a zombie-like wide eyed gaze due to lack of sleep and shock I would guess. Some were sleeping, some watching CNN in disbelief at the video footage of their former homes and many were reading The Birmingham News. I was proud the way the paper devoted an entire Sunday section to the evacuees. It was full of information on how they could receive all sorts of help from counseling to housing to schools for their kids. It also had information for donors who want to help and there are plenty of them.

The first floor is housing the families that got out before the flooding and the second floor are the more recent evacuees from places like the New Orleans Convention Center (see my Sunday post for more on that). I didn't get to see the second floor folks, but K says they are in much worse condition physically and mentally. Some of the children there have been separated from their parents and are depending solely on Red Cross volunteers to take care of them. There are many injured people there who got caught in the hurricane and hit with flying debris.

Fortunately everyone at the shelter has now had medical attention, showers, been given clothes, food, stuffed animals for the kids and toiletries for everyone. By no means is this a permanent situation for anyone there and it leaves a lot to be desired as far as privacy and peace and quiet goes, but it is the Ritz-Carlton compared to what some of these people dealt with last week. The best part of this situation with the shelters is that the locals are just as grateful to be giving as the evacuees are to be receiving help and that is the way it should be. With so much emphasis put on Jesus in the South, it is nice to see people actually walking the talk.

(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)