11/20 Sunday

Rode in with Marian and Bill again. We didn't see as many people as we did yesterday, but feel so good. We found a four-unit apartment building where there were no signs of damage, except Marian noticed some furniture piled by a dumpster, one of the signs we look for. So we went to the two upstairs apartments and couldn't believe what we saw. In each one, the master bedroom's ceiling were about to fall. And in the children's bedrooms the ceilings HAD fallen. These were pretty decent apartments and all inhabitants had jobs but didn't know what resources were available to them. The landlord said he would fix the roof but no one believed it would happen soon. They were overjoyed with our ability to help.

Then we decided to go to the two apartments on the bottom. One was a particularly sad situation. They had so much mold and had a son with asthma. He couldn't live at home because he kept having attacks. He was staying at Grandma's, but every day Mom had to driver there and take son to school which was a few blocks away from his own home. It was a real hardship and son wanted to come home so badly.

We gave her some resources but couldn't do much else. We started to drive away but it didn't feel right so we called our boss and explained that the bottom apartmens had some water damage but not enough to meet our criteria plus they had mold. He said that if the top apartments lost entire ceilings then the next big rain, due tomorrow, would probably do the same to the bottom apartments.

We went back in with big grins on our faces. The mom with the asthmatic son practically whooped with delight. Her husband had been in another room caring for their one-year-old daughter. They both were so grateful they cried. Marian and I teared up a bit too. My oh my I love Red Cross.

After work I went to Publix and bought a bunch of "stuff." Had a cheese sandwich and chips for dinner and cookies for a snack. Laid in bed, watched tv, and vegged. I am exhausted, but very very happy.