Major kudos to you for stickin' in with the dispatch stuff for so long. That's amazing! Normal (LOL) people don't realize the amount of stress that job carries. It's hard enough just knowing the decisions you make can be the difference between people living & dying, but to have to multi-task and keep it all rolling for hours and hours. It's tough. I remember the days of mental mush after work. If you aren't nutty going in, you will be soon enough. My hat is off to you being in the game this many years. Seriously. I know only 2 or 3 ladies who've done that.
Eh, Katrina itself wasn't that bad. I was on night shift when we got activated (required to stay...not allowed to leave or go home) so we stayed on nights. I'm a natural night owl anyway. Always loved nights. More interesting. Day shift blows. Anywhoo, I was put at the Emergency Operations Center with a group I had chosen to be there working for me. Ironically, that summer before the storm I had been requested to sit on the Hurricane Preparedness Committee. It's like it was meant for me to be there. The phones were crazy busy leading up to the storm. It starts out mostly people asking about evacuation info. Then they all want to know about shelters. As the storm was making her approach the calls became pleads for rides but we couldn't do that. We didn't have the resources. We tried to comfort people who were afraid, etc. We worked 12s so my shift ended at 6 am. The storm came in shortly after. I slept thru most of it. I woke a few times. I'd stare at the ceiling until I could tell there were no water marks. I'd lay my hand on the wall that was the building exterior and feel it vibrating. The wind was loud. You could hear things hit the buildings all around us. When I went back to work downstairs at 6 pm it was over with. All communications out of New Orleans was lost. Our phones including 911 were down for most of that 1st night. We literally sat & did nothing. It got sporadic in the day or so after the storm. We caught a lot of random cell calls bouncing up from the city. People crying, begging for help. Nothing we could do. Nobody could contact New Orleans. Tried to comfort them best we could. When the phones were back we got lots of calls from people who had evacuated wanting to know conditions in the areas where they lived. The lake had come inland like 5 miles in 1 part of our Parrish. Some areas we had heard were totally gone. Not leveled. Stripped. Its not fun telling people they most likely have nothing to return to. Most of us had no idea about our own homes because we couldn't leave. The Parrish officials wanted us to tell everyone they couldn't return because of the conditions. No power. No gas. No nothing. I didn't feel right about that. I told people what was going on and if they came to be prepared to get in & get back out. The Parrish was under curfew for a few weeks at least. People who stayed were like nuts. Lots of paranoia, shooting at shadows at night. We didn't really have the looting stuff like New Orleans. All our guys really fought hard to keep it square. It was wild having them come show us trunk loads of guns they'd taken off the street. Craziness. After I rotated back to communications and people were returning (after about a week) we still worked doubled-up shifts both on the road & in dispatch. With twice the personnel out there the radios rocked solid. Only the highest experienced dispatchers could hack the radios. I know I had to spank the guys s few times because they were walking over each other so bad. I'd monitor the special ops channels listening to the crews with cadaver dogs do their searches. Then you had dopey people getting hurt cutting down trees, etc.
One of those was one of the worst(emotionally) I ever dispatched. A 13 yro boy helping his dad cut trees...tree fell on the kid. The guys were out there. You could hear how bad it was in their voices but also when they'd key up you could hear the parents in the background. Tough stuff, man.
We worked doubled-up shifts for about a month. We were released from activation after the first week but so many didn't have homes to go back to so they stayed. We were blessed. Our house had very minimal damage. We could live there but we had no power for over 3 weeks. We had generators, camp stoves, etc. It wasn't a really safe environment so we kept the kids out of state until electricity was restored. I worked 20-something nights straight. 12 on, 12 off. I didn't see my children until that ended.
The hardest part for me was being strong. Before when the kids & hubby were packing up to leave they all begged and pleaded with me to leave. The forecast track was going to square up our home with 180 mph winds. The boys cried that they didn't want mommy to die. My husband cried, said the job wasn't worth dying for. In my mind I knew I had this in me to do. I wasn't afraid. I never felt like I was in physical danger. All I could think was that if it was my family who needed help I'd want someone to be there. If I had left I would've felt like a coward & regret it for the rest of my life. So I sent them away and went to work. After the storm it was 4 days or do before I could get a word out to my family. During that time they didn't know what had become of me.
In the weeks after the storm, especially if I thought of my kids, I'd want to walk away so bad. One afternoon I got a call out to my parents house. I totally cracked on the phone with Dad. I kept saying "I can't do this. I can't handle it. I wanna come home." I'll never forget it. My dad just said, "Baby you are doing it. I know you can handle it. Be strong. You're MY girl. We do this." And I hung in there. I fought to stay strong for my people. I had to stay steady or they would've cracked, too. I wiped their tears. I hugged and loved them. I stayed tough so they would. But I had my moments. I just couldn't afford for any of them to see it. Ya know?
When the shifts returned to normal and life started churning again the husband and I did a lot of soul searching. The storm hit as our marriage had pretty much hit its absolute low. In many ways it was like God Himself sent Katrina to get our heads popped out of our posteriors and get our crap together. I felt like I had done what I was supposed to do. I knew I never wanted to be separated from my children like that again. Priorities shifted. I was ready to walk away.
We ended up moving to Georgia for a career opportunity for the hubby. No regrets. But let me tell you! Adjusting to life after was brutal! I went to work for a satellite phone equipment company working regular office hours and it was terrible. The job was great. Being motivated to show up every day was difficult. Everything felt trivial and lacked meaning or substance. The fact that I was earning almost the same hourly rate as I did at the Sheriff's Office was something that made my blood boil. It made no sense. I made decisions that were literally life & death for 12 hours at a whack. I was responsible for the life & death decisions made by the 6-7 people on my shift. How that was worth the same as a silly customer service rep whose decisions were pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme was incomprehensible. It was a hard pill to swallow for quite some time. In the end, I made peace with it all by coming to terms with the knowledge that there's some jobs people do because it's what's in their soul to do. Dispatchers don't do that job for money or glory. It's what's in them. I would say "You know?" but if you've been at it that many years I know that you do.
If you're wondering if we were ever offered debriefing or counseling after the storm the answer would be no. Our lieutenant was assigned to our division because he was a liability where he was. He had no dispatch experience so he had no idea what it was like to do our job. When the subject came up with the high-ups he told them we didn't need anything. A year to the day after Katrina I sat down and poured every bit of it into a Word document. I didn't talk about it much in that first year. My hubby says he tried to ask stuff but I wouldn't go into it. That was my release from it, tho. I think we all had to find our way after. It was such a poignant thing to live. In life there's events that define time. For us there's "before the storm" and there's "after the storm".
Well, there's my novel for the day. Lol! If you ever want to read that document you're welcome to it. Take care. Write away and share. I got you, sweetie!
:wave:
