a personal account

a colleague of eman's traveled to Baton Rouge over the holiday weekend with another physician to give medical care. he's been sending us his personal accounts via email every day, and they've been heartwrenching to read. they went with free medical samples and first aid supplies and have had to ration them carefully so as not to run out prematurely. his accounts are saddening and infuriating, yet encouraging at the same time:

"Our trips to the Red Cross shelters showed us that yes, shelter and food were being provided but as of yesterday the only medical care was coming from churches and locals who chose to help of their own accord - one local doctor was explaining that neither FEMA or Red Cross would provide medical care at her massive shelter at Southern University - partly for jurisdiction conflict and partly to prevent from being overrun when news would get out of medical care. I now know that to be a successful shelter, the shelter cannot just supply a roof and food. The medical needs must be addressed, the emotional needs must be addressed, and the spiritual needs must be addressed. The places that are doing all of this have a positive environment and that energy spills over to everyone there.

By the time we finished at Greene Valley, our cell phones were ringing with word of new locales that had evacuees that needed our medical assistance - we could not go though as we had to begin our journey back to Houston to catch our return flights. This was the most difficult "I can't" I have ever had to say as I knew we were still needed - there still so much work to be done in Baton Rouge. I can only stress and remind you all that the people who are not in Red Cross or FEMA shelters are not accounted for in the numbers that we hear of evacuees on the news. There is simply no way to track them all and I do not think the government even knows about them at this point. When we were driving into Baton Rouge Saturday morning we were one of few cars headed East on I-10 with the droves of cars and buses clearly heading west to Texas and part unknown. Today as we drove East, there were massive convoys of semis, trucks, RVs, and military vehicles heading East into Baton Rouge - finally it seems help is on it's way. This certainly made us feel better although the help is LATE with no other way to describe it."