Letters from NYC

Dispatch From a Volunteer in Dome City, Texas

I'm supposed to be on vacation but was asked to come back to work early to continue helping with my firm's relief effors in relocating 6 branch offices, employees and their familes. When I got in this morning I found an email from my counterpart in Houston who's leading the efforts there.

Because his email is long I've placed it in the extended entry. It’s very life affirming, so if you have the time please read it. Thanks!

Over the Labor Day weekend, I spent time, as did many colleagues, in the Houston Astrodome as well as in other shelters and churches that are part of this city's Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. The Astrodome and the George R. Brown Convention Center alone currently house about 25,000 evacuees.
I drove to the Astrodome on Saturday, not sure what to expect. Once I arrived, I was directed to a check-in area, where I was given an orange wristband designating me as a volunteer. Then I was sent to an orientation. There, 30 of us were told what services were needed and given an overview on how to manage traumatized people who had lost everything, including family members. As the weekend progressed, I would become increasingly grateful for that briefing.

When it came time to enter the interior of the Astrodome itself, and given the horrible stories I had heard about conditions in the New Orleans Superdome, I expected "Hell on Earth." Nothing could have been further from the truth. When I walked onto the upper deck, the view was somewhat overwhelming, with the entire floor of the stadium covered with cots and thousands of people resting or slowly walking around. However, the reality was surprisingly quiet, calm, even clean.

There were cots in all the walkways against the walls, with bags of food and water nearby. I saw people actually turning down supplies, already possessing what they needed — which included not only essentials like food and water, but the confidence that they would have access to more of the same if need be.
Soon enough, it became personally clear just how much hands-on work and simple communication were needed to maintain that stability, as I started interacting with displaced families. My first encounter was with two mothers and two tiny babies in a shopping cart lined with a blanket. I joked with the mothers about their creativity in making a stroller/crib combo out of the cart, and asked them what came to be my line for the weekend: "Is everyone OK? Can I get you anything?"

One of the mothers mumbled through the washcloth she was holding over her face. When she removed it, I could see that she had a bad infection in her mouth and cheek. The medical area was near the East Gate on the floor of the 'Dome. As I escorted her downstairs, she told me her name was Annie. The medical area was well stocked and very orderly, though the personnel from the Texas Medical Center had been awake for 36 hours and were short-staffed. They had been seeing 100 people an hour and triaging serious injury and infection quickly (think "M.A.S.H."). Despite the doctors' exhaustion, Annie was examined and provided with the medicine she needed within a few minutes.
Leaving the medical tent, I met an elderly woman named Anniebelle, who had arrived from New Orleans two days earlier with her teenage grandsons. They had arrived by bus, but had been separated and she hadn't seen them since. All she wanted was to know her grandsons were OK.

As instructed during the orientation, I took down as much information as I could and made a sign for her to hold up. Often, this is the quickest and most useful method for finding family members. In addition, we had learned that at one end of the Astrodome, a system had been set up with wireless notepads connected to a database and the Internet. There, people were generating contact information for relatives of storm victims. I got a young man to work on Anniebelle's information. We found a number in a nearby town that belonged to Anniebelle's niece. I dialed her on my Blackberry and discovered that the grandsons were safe with her. Anniebelle took the phone and was in tears just talking to them. Within an hour, the family arrived at the Astrodome to pick her up.

These are only a fraction of the interactions that took place and which I experienced over the weekend at "Dome City," but the situation in Houston, at least, seemed to me to be stabilizing, thanks to incredible individual initiative and leadership of many, but in particular of the American Red Cross. Everyone was well stocked with food and water. But even as this set of challenges appears to recede, new ones are arising. The big difference from Saturday to Monday was that people in the Astrodome were asking about work. Many felt they would never go back to New Orleans and want to start a new life going forward – an inspiring desire, but one not without obstacles.

In order to help directly, employees from Investment Banking Division and Private Wealth Management have been manning the Houston Hotline in coordination with the Greater Houston Partnership, taking offers of goods and services and matching them up with the needs of the community. Local auto dealers donated $50,000. Other made offers of shelter and food. A middle-school teacher from New Jersey got Staples to donate school supplies. A Las Vegas taxi company wants to hire 250 workers. And through it all, our fellow employees have been extraordinary in solving problems and helping refine the process and assistance systems. See this Web site for more details of our efforts.

Many people are asking what they can do. Funds directed to the Red Cross, which are then matched by the Firm, are a terrific option. Keep in mind most relief efforts now are regional in nature. Although they will soon be national in scale, it will take a long time until lives and homes are rebuilt. So, while the government is now fully engaged, there will always be a role for individual initiative and, again, this in my mind is what has helped tide so many over during the past week. I'm proud to be a part of a Firm that has been such a part of that and helped in so many ways already, but I know we can all do more.

The Houstonian in me knows that, to paraphrase a famous line from Apollo 13, "Failure is not an option." And, of course, along with the efforts of so many others in cities and towns around the country, that "this will be Houston's finest hour." That's why I'm still wearing my orange wristband and why I wanted to send this personal account of how much good all your help in New York is doing.