Argh. I walked out of the Red Cross headquarters here in Baton Rouge early today... sick of doing busy work. I've been helping run phone and data lines for IP phones for the past two days, but Vic, the retired phone guy I've been shadowing, ran out of things for me to do and had me taping up cables to the bottoms of the fold out tables they had covering the expanse of the gutted closed down Wal Mart. Combined with the feeling of wasting my time, I overheard a couple of families at the fenced in entrance asking for assistance. That being the operational headquarters, they don't have any services there for "clients" (what the Red Cross calls those they help)... so I saw them turned away and being told to call a 1-800 number, a number close to no one has been able to get through on for 3 days. One guy was pretty pissed and for good reason, he has been trying to get a family into shelters for days, and said that since the phone numbers weren't working he figured he'd come down in person to get the info... and they had nothing for him. The guy guarding the gate just avoided his questions... it was pretty appalling. I also witnessed the waste and glut of money the Red Cross has at it's disposal: We had started setting up a small call center on the fold out tables that were setup. We went to take a break and when we came back, all the tables we had sort of wired up were gone and were being replaced with brand new ones that some guy had ordered because the old ones were "too old"... which was ridiculous. They were in perfect shape, just not glossy on top. "There goes someone's relief card," said Sherman, the retired engineer and long time Red Cross volunteer I was working with.

The Red Cross had tons of satellite and database problems today and it showed... I witnessed a lot of calls being dropped. Can you imagine calling a number for DAYS at a time and finally getting through, only to have the call cut out on you?!

All that said, for the geek side of me the tech behind the operation was pretty cool to see and be a part of. Servers in shock mount crates with sat. uplinks that were plug and play, with Cisco IP phones EVERYWHERE. I wish I had my digital camera with me to show some photos of the operation floor. Pretty crazy, and very ad hoc with cables strung from the ceiling and running all over the place.

Monday morning before Mom and I went to the Red Cross we shuttled goods around for VOA which felt like helping at least. So... I'm gonna find somewhere else to give a hand. Not having my own car is a real issue around here... and traffic is ungodly. If I had my own car I think I'd head to the Gulf Coast... seems like they still have some areas in desperate need. Haven't figured out what I'll be doing tomorrow yet. Maybe I'll go back to the Red Cross and get in with another group, but the corporate feel of the place is sort of stymieing.