Hurricane Relief Work

Wisper Hurricane relief efforts.

Thursday evening, after working all day, Mike and Patrick from Wisper drove to Rayville LA, from St. Louis. We came down to Louisiana to answer a call for tower climbers needed ASAP. Mac Dearman (wearing hat) had stopped his life to devote his efforts to connect these people displaced by the hurricane.

Mac Dearman, a friend of mine in the WISP industry, is organizing a group of people from all over the country to provide connectivity, computer time and much needed Voice over IP for telephone connections to the shelter camps set up in the North East LA region. He is hobbling around on a broken shin bone, and can't climb right now. We arrived at about 0300 on friday morning.

I have been an emotional type of person, since certain tragedies over the years, even though most people that know me don't ever see this, because I concentrate on work or whatever task I am doing somewhere between 100 and 110 percent. This has been really hard, and fulfilling for me. The mindset of everyone here is gut wrenching. It is all give, and no problems of any kind. It is amazing to see a group of 30 strangers thrown together with diverse personalities, and backgrounds working together like they have a common bond that will not let anything interfere with their goal. That goal is reinforced when you see the despair and helplessness of the people in the shelters, and the lifting of the spirits when they can get on the phone and call loved ones, or start to put their lives back together. We receive words of encouragement and praise from Mac, and other locals and it hits me every time. I wish I could do more, and I definitely will be back for more. I don't do this for myself, it is more because I have a unique set of skils, and there is a definite need for them down here.

I will be posting more of the daily activities, and also fill in some photos if my computer will start cooperating.


http://crisis.wispa.org

This is one of the many links for news about this cause.