HURRICANE IKE on lockdown!!

I'm certainly NOT a hurricane virgin but it was my FIRST experience on a disaster team working for a hospital! I don't necessarily recommend it but we did survive ;)!

I'll try to hit the highlights and spare the GORY details ;)

Here are a few things I learned:
1. I didn't need to take my hair dryer, flattening iron, and makeup.
2. It would have been really smart to pack myself say.....at least ONE
bottle of water.
3. The air mattress I picked up in the middle of the night after the garage door
erector set would have been more useful if I had also purchased some EARPLUGS!!
4. Hospitals without water are NOT a good place to be.
5. Red hazardous waste bags are now the stuff of bad dreams.
6. If I lose my job as an OT, I could get a job in the hospital kitchen!
7. Armed guards can be kinda scary looking!!
8. It IS POSSIBLE to make really hot mostly miserable patients laugh and
crack smiles with the use of flashlights and bad singing late at night! :)
9. Disaster Team "A" can be and was a team building experience for our department!



Just part of my "stuff" I decided I must take for the what turned out to be 48 hour lockdown for Team A!!


Aw, come on! :) You all know I pack light!!


FUN before the storm! I was nearly late (*gasp* I know many are surprised to hear that!) to our lockdown deadline b/c my SO sent me on a mission to get candy for my boss, Mike!! *ROFL* BUT you KNOW this opportunity will probably never happen again so it was worth the 48 minutes in the longest line of my life at Kroger! :)


Here we are in the kitchen crew! Yes, the Sports Medicine Department is dispensed as needed and we were NEEDED to help get meals made and served to the patients and staff during and after the storm! Some of our other duties included helping the nurses position patients in bed (complete with a Sports Medicine serenade & light show), helping clean up water & falling ceiling tiles, passing out water to ALL, the serving line in the cafeteria, changing linen/trash, wound care for the patients, and EVEN some physical/occupational therapy!!


We decided the coffee pot was DEFINITELY red-plug worthy!

and THIS is why red bags are now not fondly thought of...we had NO water....'Enuf said.