As our regular readers know, we don't post much while we are on Red Cross jobs. The work is rather all-consuming and doesn't leave us much energy at the end of the day to compose full sentences, much less paragraphs. We plan to go back to our regular blogging schedule after our Red Cross stint is done this year, but in the meantime we have been using Twitter for the last several months as a way to sort of "micro blog."
Twitter is a social networking site that invites you to answer the question, "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or fewer. It allows us to post quick updates of what we are thinking, feeling or doing. We like it, and have been sharing it with my family and a handful of friends.
My updates are available here, and Sean's quick tweets are here. You can also read our latest stuff in the boxes in the upper right corner of this blog. You'll need a Flash player to see those.
If you want to join in the fun and post your own tweets, it is easy to sign up for Twitter. The site will ask you to choose a user name and password, and give them an email address. We have received absolutely no spam or other unwanted emails from Twitter.
I hope you'll enjoy this additional way to read about our adventures!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Update from the trenches
First, let me apologize for taking so long to post here, and also to everyone who has posted a comment or sent us a direct email in the last couple of weeks. We've been swamped, and I just have not had the time.
We did take yesterday afternoon off, but the backlog of email and other administrative chores has been a bit overwhelming. To add to that, I have a brand new cell phone, and I've been spending pretty much every spare minute getting it configured properly and my calendar, contacts, notes, and all the other junk I carry in my phone ported over.
I had really hoped to nurse my Nokia tri-mode phone along for another year or so, to continue to take advantage of my now-deprecated Verizon plan with nationwide analog roaming included. This has been a real boon for communicating out in the sticks, where analog towers are still the only option in many places. My plans were waylaid, however, when the hinge on the flip-style phone cracked wide open. The phone continued to work, but it would only stay in the closed position if I put it in the case, and it was clear that the little bit of plastic still holding the hinge together would not last more than another week or two. This actually happened while we were still in Florida, just after we finished there and before we were deployed to Louisiana.
Given that the only Verizon phones still available with analog roaming are low-end models with limited organizer functions, and that I am now using my phone to keep my calendar and address book as well as other personal information, I decided the time was right to bite the bullet and change to an all-digital plan, which opened up a whole array of "smart phones" with integral PDAs and even Internet access. After some pretty extensive research, I decided on the Blackberry Curve (yes, even in preference to the iPhone).
I ended up going with Sprint, whose unlimited plan includes all the voice, data, messaging, and navigation you can eat for a flat rate of $100 a month. I'll be getting a Red Cross discount on top of that, which I think is 15%. By contrast, Verizon and AT&T wanted $160 or $140, respectively, for the same type of plan. Both of those carriers have larger networks, but I did not figure it to be worth the extra money. Louise's voice-only phone is still on Verizon, so we'll have that coverage when we need it.
So far I am very happy, although I've had to do quite a bit of conversion work to get my information out of Nokia's crappy system and into the Blackberry (just as I had to do a similar or greater amount of work to get it into the Nokia from my Palm in the first place). The down side, at the moment, is that Sprint has a poor signal in the building we are using for Red Cross headquarters here, and my calls keep rolling to voice mail. I have 30 days to change my mind; we'll see if the poor signal issues end up forcing me to switch teams.
Speaking of headquarters, we are back in the same building we used for Katrina three years ago. Everything is so familiar, and we already know where all the good restaurants are. The Red Cross signed another lease on the place the following year, and set it up as a "hot site" for future storms. As usual, I am not posting a map link to our current location, but we are in a vacant parking lot of a for-lease industrial building across the street. The weather, thankfully, is again fairly temperate, so we've needed a minimum of air conditioning, and the genny is running only about four hours every two days or so.
We're working with a great crew, many of whom we know well from previous operations, and it feels good to be working in a place where the need is so great. That said, I am looking forward to the end of the operation, I hope in just a couple of weeks, to catch back up on our sleep.
We did take yesterday afternoon off, but the backlog of email and other administrative chores has been a bit overwhelming. To add to that, I have a brand new cell phone, and I've been spending pretty much every spare minute getting it configured properly and my calendar, contacts, notes, and all the other junk I carry in my phone ported over.
I had really hoped to nurse my Nokia tri-mode phone along for another year or so, to continue to take advantage of my now-deprecated Verizon plan with nationwide analog roaming included. This has been a real boon for communicating out in the sticks, where analog towers are still the only option in many places. My plans were waylaid, however, when the hinge on the flip-style phone cracked wide open. The phone continued to work, but it would only stay in the closed position if I put it in the case, and it was clear that the little bit of plastic still holding the hinge together would not last more than another week or two. This actually happened while we were still in Florida, just after we finished there and before we were deployed to Louisiana.
Given that the only Verizon phones still available with analog roaming are low-end models with limited organizer functions, and that I am now using my phone to keep my calendar and address book as well as other personal information, I decided the time was right to bite the bullet and change to an all-digital plan, which opened up a whole array of "smart phones" with integral PDAs and even Internet access. After some pretty extensive research, I decided on the Blackberry Curve (yes, even in preference to the iPhone).
I ended up going with Sprint, whose unlimited plan includes all the voice, data, messaging, and navigation you can eat for a flat rate of $100 a month. I'll be getting a Red Cross discount on top of that, which I think is 15%. By contrast, Verizon and AT&T wanted $160 or $140, respectively, for the same type of plan. Both of those carriers have larger networks, but I did not figure it to be worth the extra money. Louise's voice-only phone is still on Verizon, so we'll have that coverage when we need it.
So far I am very happy, although I've had to do quite a bit of conversion work to get my information out of Nokia's crappy system and into the Blackberry (just as I had to do a similar or greater amount of work to get it into the Nokia from my Palm in the first place). The down side, at the moment, is that Sprint has a poor signal in the building we are using for Red Cross headquarters here, and my calls keep rolling to voice mail. I have 30 days to change my mind; we'll see if the poor signal issues end up forcing me to switch teams.
Speaking of headquarters, we are back in the same building we used for Katrina three years ago. Everything is so familiar, and we already know where all the good restaurants are. The Red Cross signed another lease on the place the following year, and set it up as a "hot site" for future storms. As usual, I am not posting a map link to our current location, but we are in a vacant parking lot of a for-lease industrial building across the street. The weather, thankfully, is again fairly temperate, so we've needed a minimum of air conditioning, and the genny is running only about four hours every two days or so.
We're working with a great crew, many of whom we know well from previous operations, and it feels good to be working in a place where the need is so great. That said, I am looking forward to the end of the operation, I hope in just a couple of weeks, to catch back up on our sleep.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Red Stick
We are in Baton Rouge. It's a zoo here, and we had trouble finding parking last night, so we spent the night in a church parking lot. We'll move this morning before anyone gets here, and sort out a more permanent parking arrangement later today.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Coffee break's over -- back to work
We are at a familiar Wal-Mart in Tallahassee (map), on our way to an even more familiar location in Baton Rouge. It looks like we will get to help with the Gustav relief effort, after all.
We never made it to Disney World, or to Wet & Wild for that matter. We had hoped to wrap things up at the old HQ Monday, and maybe get out someplace on Tuesday, but the cartage company never came to pick up the 30-yard dumpster, which was the last item keeping us from locking the place up. After a few phone calls, we managed to get them out on Tuesday, after which I did a walk-through of the building with someone from the chapter and turned the keys over; by that time, it was close to 5pm.
Even though we had already processed off the job, we had kept the rental car until all these niggling little details were handled. Since we had missed the Tuesday morning drop-off anyway, we took the car to dinner at the Citrus Club, our affiliate club in Orlando, on the top floor of the BB&T building. We had a wonderful dinner, but no sooner had we sat down then we got the call from the Disaster Operations Center (DOC) to head to Baton Rouge.
Since we are going in to relieve other workers already on the ground, this deployment for us has somewhat less arrival pressure -- we took the time to finish our dinner, and handled a few personal items Wednesday morning before we left. The guy who's been sitting all day waiting for truck tractors in the enormous gravel lot where the semitrailers have been staged was kind enough to pick Louise up at Avis, while I spent the morning ordering satellite parts and resolving some billing issues (more on both of these later, possibly in another post).
While we had been luke-warm on the Disney visit in this weather, and the water park idea was just a substitute recreational activity that we could take or leave, the real disappointment in getting called early for Baton Rouge (we were hoping for a call much later in the week) is that we did not get the chance to connect with our friends in northern Florida. We waved wistfully as we passed their campground, the Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park, on the Interstate at speed for the second time in a month. But we know that Red Cross resources are strained to the breaking point right now, and, even though we had asked for a full week off, watching the reports coming in from Ike have gotten us itching to be redeployed.
We finally rolled out of Orlando right around noon. We dumped our tanks at the same Petro truck stop between Ocala and Gainesville in which we had spent a frustrating morning on our way south, and set our sites on Talahassee for an overnight stop. Louise was scheduled to teach the technology training by teleconference last night (ironically, in lieu of our friend CC, who has got her hands full with Ike right now), and we needed to be off the road early in a city with good cell service. We stopped at the Olive Garden for dinner before rolling here for the night.
In a few minutes we will be back on the road, and I expect we will be in Baton Rouge, or someplace close by, tonight.
We never made it to Disney World, or to Wet & Wild for that matter. We had hoped to wrap things up at the old HQ Monday, and maybe get out someplace on Tuesday, but the cartage company never came to pick up the 30-yard dumpster, which was the last item keeping us from locking the place up. After a few phone calls, we managed to get them out on Tuesday, after which I did a walk-through of the building with someone from the chapter and turned the keys over; by that time, it was close to 5pm.
Even though we had already processed off the job, we had kept the rental car until all these niggling little details were handled. Since we had missed the Tuesday morning drop-off anyway, we took the car to dinner at the Citrus Club, our affiliate club in Orlando, on the top floor of the BB&T building. We had a wonderful dinner, but no sooner had we sat down then we got the call from the Disaster Operations Center (DOC) to head to Baton Rouge.
Since we are going in to relieve other workers already on the ground, this deployment for us has somewhat less arrival pressure -- we took the time to finish our dinner, and handled a few personal items Wednesday morning before we left. The guy who's been sitting all day waiting for truck tractors in the enormous gravel lot where the semitrailers have been staged was kind enough to pick Louise up at Avis, while I spent the morning ordering satellite parts and resolving some billing issues (more on both of these later, possibly in another post).
While we had been luke-warm on the Disney visit in this weather, and the water park idea was just a substitute recreational activity that we could take or leave, the real disappointment in getting called early for Baton Rouge (we were hoping for a call much later in the week) is that we did not get the chance to connect with our friends in northern Florida. We waved wistfully as we passed their campground, the Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park, on the Interstate at speed for the second time in a month. But we know that Red Cross resources are strained to the breaking point right now, and, even though we had asked for a full week off, watching the reports coming in from Ike have gotten us itching to be redeployed.
We finally rolled out of Orlando right around noon. We dumped our tanks at the same Petro truck stop between Ocala and Gainesville in which we had spent a frustrating morning on our way south, and set our sites on Talahassee for an overnight stop. Louise was scheduled to teach the technology training by teleconference last night (ironically, in lieu of our friend CC, who has got her hands full with Ike right now), and we needed to be off the road early in a city with good cell service. We stopped at the Olive Garden for dinner before rolling here for the night.
In a few minutes we will be back on the road, and I expect we will be in Baton Rouge, or someplace close by, tonight.
Monday, September 15, 2008
A well-earned rest
We are still parked at the vacant industrial building in Orlando that served as relief headquarters for Hanna/Ike. We've been comfortable here, and, up until 11 last night, we've had two 30-amp legs of power.
For whatever reason, the main breaker for the majority of the building tripped last night; this morning I called the landlord, who is sending someone over to check it out. (One does not just reset one of these monsters; there's a sequence to be followed, and the cause of the trip needs to be investigated. Looks to me like a single-leg dropout or ground fault due to nearby electrical storms.) Fortunately, most of the Red Cross space is fed from a separate building entrance/transformer, which did not trip out, so we pulled around to the north side of the building at midnight, and just ran an extension cord through the door and into a 20-amp outlet. The cord's rated for 13 amps, which is just enough to run one A/C.
As I wrote in my last post, we elected not to make the mad dash back to Texas to continue with this relief operation. Our good friends Don and CC, who live in Channelview (and we do hope their house there is OK) have taken over for us, and so we know the operation is in good hands, technologically speaking. We did send two of our staff members over to them on Thursday, as we had the place mostly packed up by Wednesday night. We kept the ECRV crew here Thursday to finish up, and they drove the truck home to Atlanta on Friday.
After chasing Dolly, Fay, Hanna, and the near-miss on Florida of Ike, we felt bad that we could not actually be there for what turns out to be the largest relief effort of the year. But after being deployed nearly continuously for eight full weeks, we needed a rest, and the logistics of getting ourselves to Dallas in time to set up the operation there, while at the same time ensuring all the steps to wrap up here were taken, would have been daunting. I am confident that we will still be of some help along the gulf -- people currently in Louisiana from Gustav are coming up on their terms, and will need to be relieved. Unless something else takes aim at Florida in the next week or so, we are gearing up to head in that direction.
After we had everything packed up and shipped on Thursday, we had the usual post-operation "crash," where we sat around the bus like zombies and did absolutely nothing for a full day. I did spend some time Friday and a good part of Saturday writing reports and wrapping up loose ends. We were essentially finished Saturday, and we called staffing to process ourselves off the job. However, one consequence of being entrusted with the keys (as we so often are, because we are living on the premises, as well as needing 24-hour access to tend to the server and satellite equipment as needed) is that we are on the hook to close the place up and turn the keys over to the local chapter.
This is actually an unusual occurrence; normally, when we finish an operation, the space we occupied, which is often begged, borrowed, or rented on a short-term, as-needed basis, returns immediately to the landlord. We thus have a good deal of pressure to completely vacate the space, as well as clean it up. In this case, however, the Red Cross has leased this space through December 31, so that it will be available for any other storms this season. (Also, I think the landlord was not amenable to anything shorter.) So we've left all the tables and chairs, and some ethernet wiring that we fabricated on-site, as well as office supplies, bottled water, and shelf stable snacks. (All the technology equipment has been sent on to Dallas or returned to Austin.)
The chapter will take custody of the keys until the next time we need to use the facility, or the lease ends. We are just waiting now for one last item, which is to have the dumpster picked up. We've been told that's scheduled for sometime today; once that's been done, we will drive the keys over to the chapter office, and return our rental car to the airport. We'll stay here, running on our 13-amp circuit, until at least tomorrow; we'll padlock the gate behind us on our way out.
Speaking of which, I know I have previously written that we would be going to Disney World when we finish here. However, temperatures here have been in the mid-to-high 90s, with humidity to match, and the idea of wandering around a theme park in those conditions is not entirely appealing. It turns out, though, that we can reach the Wet & Wild water park from here on a single city bus, and perhaps we will spend the day there tomorrow. A water park seems much more appealing in this sort of weather.
If temperatures come down some by the end of the week, perhaps we'll spend a couple of nights with Disney anyway. I know for sure we'll need to head someplace by Wednesday, because our tanks are nearly full. After we are done in Orlando, we'll try to catch up with friends in Jacksonville or Live Oak.
For whatever reason, the main breaker for the majority of the building tripped last night; this morning I called the landlord, who is sending someone over to check it out. (One does not just reset one of these monsters; there's a sequence to be followed, and the cause of the trip needs to be investigated. Looks to me like a single-leg dropout or ground fault due to nearby electrical storms.) Fortunately, most of the Red Cross space is fed from a separate building entrance/transformer, which did not trip out, so we pulled around to the north side of the building at midnight, and just ran an extension cord through the door and into a 20-amp outlet. The cord's rated for 13 amps, which is just enough to run one A/C.
As I wrote in my last post, we elected not to make the mad dash back to Texas to continue with this relief operation. Our good friends Don and CC, who live in Channelview (and we do hope their house there is OK) have taken over for us, and so we know the operation is in good hands, technologically speaking. We did send two of our staff members over to them on Thursday, as we had the place mostly packed up by Wednesday night. We kept the ECRV crew here Thursday to finish up, and they drove the truck home to Atlanta on Friday.
After chasing Dolly, Fay, Hanna, and the near-miss on Florida of Ike, we felt bad that we could not actually be there for what turns out to be the largest relief effort of the year. But after being deployed nearly continuously for eight full weeks, we needed a rest, and the logistics of getting ourselves to Dallas in time to set up the operation there, while at the same time ensuring all the steps to wrap up here were taken, would have been daunting. I am confident that we will still be of some help along the gulf -- people currently in Louisiana from Gustav are coming up on their terms, and will need to be relieved. Unless something else takes aim at Florida in the next week or so, we are gearing up to head in that direction.
After we had everything packed up and shipped on Thursday, we had the usual post-operation "crash," where we sat around the bus like zombies and did absolutely nothing for a full day. I did spend some time Friday and a good part of Saturday writing reports and wrapping up loose ends. We were essentially finished Saturday, and we called staffing to process ourselves off the job. However, one consequence of being entrusted with the keys (as we so often are, because we are living on the premises, as well as needing 24-hour access to tend to the server and satellite equipment as needed) is that we are on the hook to close the place up and turn the keys over to the local chapter.
This is actually an unusual occurrence; normally, when we finish an operation, the space we occupied, which is often begged, borrowed, or rented on a short-term, as-needed basis, returns immediately to the landlord. We thus have a good deal of pressure to completely vacate the space, as well as clean it up. In this case, however, the Red Cross has leased this space through December 31, so that it will be available for any other storms this season. (Also, I think the landlord was not amenable to anything shorter.) So we've left all the tables and chairs, and some ethernet wiring that we fabricated on-site, as well as office supplies, bottled water, and shelf stable snacks. (All the technology equipment has been sent on to Dallas or returned to Austin.)
The chapter will take custody of the keys until the next time we need to use the facility, or the lease ends. We are just waiting now for one last item, which is to have the dumpster picked up. We've been told that's scheduled for sometime today; once that's been done, we will drive the keys over to the chapter office, and return our rental car to the airport. We'll stay here, running on our 13-amp circuit, until at least tomorrow; we'll padlock the gate behind us on our way out.
Speaking of which, I know I have previously written that we would be going to Disney World when we finish here. However, temperatures here have been in the mid-to-high 90s, with humidity to match, and the idea of wandering around a theme park in those conditions is not entirely appealing. It turns out, though, that we can reach the Wet & Wild water park from here on a single city bus, and perhaps we will spend the day there tomorrow. A water park seems much more appealing in this sort of weather.
If temperatures come down some by the end of the week, perhaps we'll spend a couple of nights with Disney anyway. I know for sure we'll need to head someplace by Wednesday, because our tanks are nearly full. After we are done in Orlando, we'll try to catch up with friends in Jacksonville or Live Oak.
Monday, September 8, 2008
From Fay to Hanna to Ike
We are still in Florida, now at an undisclosed location in Orlando about 15 miles from our last spot, which I can now reveal was the Osceola Heritage Park (OHP), an event center involving an arena, an exhibit hall, and a ballpark where the Houston Astros do their spring training, as well as some minor league fields, horse barns, and various other facilities.
The OHP was very good to us, donating most of the space we used. Management unlocked one of the 50-amp RV pedestals for Odyssey, and we were quite comfortable there, a short walk from the events building where headquarters was located. They even arranged tickets for us to the Three Dog Night concert held in the arena on the 4th, however we worked right through it and could not attend. We did have to move, at one point, from the large exhibit hall into a smaller meeting room in the same building to make room for the Home Show -- fortunately, they had allowed us to locate our server in their telecom room, so we only had to move patch cables around.
The OHP was very good to us, donating most of the space we used. Management unlocked one of the 50-amp RV pedestals for Odyssey, and we were quite comfortable there, a short walk from the events building where headquarters was located. They even arranged tickets for us to the Three Dog Night concert held in the arena on the 4th, however we worked right through it and could not attend. We did have to move, at one point, from the large exhibit hall into a smaller meeting room in the same building to make room for the Home Show -- fortunately, they had allowed us to locate our server in their telecom room, so we only had to move patch cables around.
As were were winding down the relief operation for Fay, Hanna appeared on the charts. Given the number of Red Cross personnel already on the ground in Florida, the Disaster Operations Center (DOC) elected to keep some folks in-state; I got the call on Wednesday asking if I could go to a new operation starting somewhere between Orlando and Jacksonville for Hanna. The kicker would be that Louise would have to remain behind on the Fay operation until it closed -- there were only four of us left at that point, and our manager Laurie was not about to give up two of her staff. Louise would join me in a few days, after the last of the Fay equipment was shipped.
Louise and I had a brief discussion about whether we'd accept the assignment at all, given how I had been feeling (and the fact that we were looking forward, perhaps, to a day or two off in Orlando when we finished here), and, if so, what the logistics would be. By this point in the operation, I was already feeling a little better about things; there is something about actually working a relief operation that mitigates the petty politics of it all -- people need us, and we are delivering an important service to the community. And, after all, where I had left things was that I wanted to see how we were asked when the next one came along, and how well they handled the deployment. So that left merely the logistical questions.
We decided that we could handle the logistics of being separated for a few days with such a short distance to move the bus, although we vacillated between leaving the bus in Kissimmee or taking it to the new location from the onset. Ultimately, it made no difference; the search for new headquarters kept coming up empty, and we ended up opening the new operation in the very same building where we were closing the old operation. It was a little strange shipping all the equipment from the Fay operation back to Austin, even as people were arriving for Hanna (a situation which caused some tension with the incoming job director).
The Hanna operation was short-lived. We had not even signed a new HQ yet nor received any equipment when I got a call from the DOC that we were being assigned a new DR number and that we were now, officially, the Hurricane Ike relief operation -- Hannah's track had already moved so far east that it was no longer a threat to Florida, and Ike was looming large.
We signed this new headquarters Friday and began moving in, with our equipment arriving here that morning. Louise remained behind in Kissimmee to finish wrapping up Fay, and I bounced back and forth as the Ike HQ officially "moved." We completed the move Saturday and things were very much calmer Sunday. That said, by Sunday morning, it was looking like Ike would also miss Florida altogether, and the whole operation went into a holding pattern while we waited to see where the storm would head. This morning we had little more to go on, but it began to look more and more like we would be sending many of the 400+ volunteers that already arrived here westward to Louisiana or Texas.
That's where things stood as I began typing this early this afternoon, during a quiet moment. The quiet moment was short: soon, all hell broke loose as we got marching orders to set up a high-volume "outprocessing" center to quickly move 400+ people off the operation to wherever they might be needed. By 6pm, that plan had morphed into moving the entire operation, lock, stock, and barrel to Fort Worth. Suffice it to say, the server and database ramifications of doing that were not fully thought through when the plan was hatched, and we scrambled until nearly 10 this evening to get everything ready. Tomorrow will be another busy day as we try to get users migrated, and half my staff will be leaving mid-day for Fort Worth to re-start the operation there.
We have elected not to follow along. We've been deployed more or less continuously since July 11, and we could use a few days' break. Also, we came all the way to Florida from Texas, and we'd like to enjoy it a bit rather than go right back there. Lastly, we're still smarting from the deployment fiasco on our way here, as well as the battle royale we had to get our expenses reimbursed from Austin, and we're just plain tired of fighting that battle (more on this in another post -- I'm running out of steam tonight).
So we will remain behind, along with a small crew, to dismantle this headquarters over the next three days, pack it all, and ship it to Forth Worth and/or Austin. Then, to coin a phrase, we're going to Disney World.
Louise and I had a brief discussion about whether we'd accept the assignment at all, given how I had been feeling (and the fact that we were looking forward, perhaps, to a day or two off in Orlando when we finished here), and, if so, what the logistics would be. By this point in the operation, I was already feeling a little better about things; there is something about actually working a relief operation that mitigates the petty politics of it all -- people need us, and we are delivering an important service to the community. And, after all, where I had left things was that I wanted to see how we were asked when the next one came along, and how well they handled the deployment. So that left merely the logistical questions.
We decided that we could handle the logistics of being separated for a few days with such a short distance to move the bus, although we vacillated between leaving the bus in Kissimmee or taking it to the new location from the onset. Ultimately, it made no difference; the search for new headquarters kept coming up empty, and we ended up opening the new operation in the very same building where we were closing the old operation. It was a little strange shipping all the equipment from the Fay operation back to Austin, even as people were arriving for Hanna (a situation which caused some tension with the incoming job director).
The Hanna operation was short-lived. We had not even signed a new HQ yet nor received any equipment when I got a call from the DOC that we were being assigned a new DR number and that we were now, officially, the Hurricane Ike relief operation -- Hannah's track had already moved so far east that it was no longer a threat to Florida, and Ike was looming large.
We signed this new headquarters Friday and began moving in, with our equipment arriving here that morning. Louise remained behind in Kissimmee to finish wrapping up Fay, and I bounced back and forth as the Ike HQ officially "moved." We completed the move Saturday and things were very much calmer Sunday. That said, by Sunday morning, it was looking like Ike would also miss Florida altogether, and the whole operation went into a holding pattern while we waited to see where the storm would head. This morning we had little more to go on, but it began to look more and more like we would be sending many of the 400+ volunteers that already arrived here westward to Louisiana or Texas.
That's where things stood as I began typing this early this afternoon, during a quiet moment. The quiet moment was short: soon, all hell broke loose as we got marching orders to set up a high-volume "outprocessing" center to quickly move 400+ people off the operation to wherever they might be needed. By 6pm, that plan had morphed into moving the entire operation, lock, stock, and barrel to Fort Worth. Suffice it to say, the server and database ramifications of doing that were not fully thought through when the plan was hatched, and we scrambled until nearly 10 this evening to get everything ready. Tomorrow will be another busy day as we try to get users migrated, and half my staff will be leaving mid-day for Fort Worth to re-start the operation there.
We have elected not to follow along. We've been deployed more or less continuously since July 11, and we could use a few days' break. Also, we came all the way to Florida from Texas, and we'd like to enjoy it a bit rather than go right back there. Lastly, we're still smarting from the deployment fiasco on our way here, as well as the battle royale we had to get our expenses reimbursed from Austin, and we're just plain tired of fighting that battle (more on this in another post -- I'm running out of steam tonight).
So we will remain behind, along with a small crew, to dismantle this headquarters over the next three days, pack it all, and ship it to Forth Worth and/or Austin. Then, to coin a phrase, we're going to Disney World.
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