Day 1, Orientation - Jackson, MS

After receiving my mandatory Tetanus shot on Friday, November 18, 2005, on Sunday, 11/20/2005, I drove about 450 miles to Jackson, MS for my orientation before heading down to the "field". I stayed at the Edison Walthal hotel in downtown Jackson. Monday morning, I attended a 1/2 day orientation where the group I was with in the orientation was told about the devastation in Gulfport (Harrison County), MS. I was given my "red bag", which is a large red duffle bag with my hard hat, reflective vest, first aid kit, hand sanitizer, flashlight, head lamp, and rain poncho. I had to provide my own steel shanked boots. After my red bag, I was sent up the street to a government building to get my FEMA badge.

Around 1pm or so, I got in my rented Grand Am and headed down to Gulfport, MS. I took my newly purchased Garmin GPS Street Pilot. Even though this unit is missing an embarrassingly large amount of items, it was still useful. (I recomend against the Garmin. Get a TomTom instead). By the time I reached Hattiesburg, I started seeing some of the hurricane damage. There were plenty of trees knocked over... I still had about 60 miles to go before I got to the red zone. The further I drove down the road, the more and more trees I saw down. Just before it got too dark to see the buildings, I started seeing blue tarps on the roofs of houses and a little bid of storm debris around.

Around 7 or 8pm, I arrived at my hotel, the Crystal Inn, Gulfport, which is where I am right now as I'm writing this. By a stroke of luck, my company was about to book me a room here for a month. It was all about timing. All hotels in this area are solid full because of the victims who are staying in hotels and the FEMA relief workers. I had a difficult time finding it because all of the street lights are out, the sign in front of the hotel no longer exists, and the parking lot lights were out. The hotel was in the dark. In spite of all that, the power is not out, there are just no free standing lamps or signs around here.