When night settles over the River Center’s impromptu shelters, the humanity of Louisiana’s floods becomes breathtakingly clear.
Walk the rows of cots, and you’ll see families of four with their cots pushed together into one huge pallet, toddlers curled up under fleece blankets with their parents on either side. Two older men in adjacent cots share the space between them to store their few possessions, which include pairs of sneakers and a bag of chips. One empty cot bears a handwritten sign: “Back tomorrow, with my aunt tonight. Thank you!”
Two and a half weeks after tens of thousands lost their homes to the flood, the River Center is still sheltering around 800 displaced people. That number is, thankfully, down from the nearly 5,000 people spread across Baton Rouge shelters before consolidating into the River Center in late August.
Dozens of volunteers in red and white vests weave between the rows of cots to fetch whatever a resident needs as lights out begins, from snacks to emotional support to a quick and discreet change of bedding if a resident’s child has an accident. This is the Red Cross night crew.
They work 12-hour shifts, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., willingly donating their normal sleep hours to make sure all needs are met at the River Center. Caught for quick interviews on an August night among mountains of supplies in their storage area, each one is eager to grab a chair for the few minutes we talk—likely the last time they’ll be off their feet all night.
Photo by Collin Richie.
Though the hours can be exhausting, their voices are clear as they speak with a colorful mix of accents. Pedro Guerrero of Miami and Gary Lafauci of Boston were sent down as part of a team of JetBlue employees. Retired military man Calvin Fernstrum and his retired government-employee wife, Leigh, came down from Menominee, Michigan, for their first Red Cross mission once they saw the news.
The Fernstrums originally trained to do damage assessment, but when those volunteer slots filled up, they switched to sheltering. When sheltering filled up, they switched to food safety. When food safety filled up, something opened again in sheltering, and this determined pair finally made their way south to begin volunteering.
“We’ll be working seven hours into tomorrow,” Calvin says late on a Tuesday night, in a thick U.P. (Michigan shorthand for the state’s Upper Peninsula) cadence. “But we just wanted to work.”
Though Claudette Rogers came in from Montgomery, Alabama, the work is close to home for this volunteer and counselor. She’s from Bogalusa, less than two hours east of Baton Rouge. In Montgomery, she counsels victims of domestic abuse, recovering addicts and those suffering PTSD, but she’s taken vacation time off of her full-time job to pitch in with Red Cross. Now a regular of the graveyard shift, she says her fellow volunteers have her back through the long hours
“We encourage each other,” Rogers says. “This is my first deployment [with Red Cross], so I’ve really enjoyed meeting so many people from so many different places and being in the environment with big hearts and people wanting to help each other.”
Photo by Collin Richie.
She heads up mental health support for whatever issues may arise during the night. When an elderly woman became uncomfortable bunking near a gay man, Rogers sat down with her and helped her find compassion and peace in the situation. When residents get confused, disoriented or upset in the dark, Rogers finds her way to their bedsides and sits with them to talk, person to person. She’s on a break now, getting ready to settle back in for another night of offering support to these shell-shocked residents. As she tells her story, another nighttime volunteer—Kathy Swanzey of North Carolina—bustles into the storage area.
“I have a man who just got off a hard day at work,” Swanzey says, picking out a pair of extra large scrubs from the tables. “Got to get him something comfortable.”
“I know how that is,” Rogers says.
Photo by Collin Richie.
Like the rest of the night crew, she’s working 60 to 80 hours a week, but she’s happy to help. She and the volunteers power through the nights with dry humor, Monster energy drinks, strong coffee, get-to-know-you conversations with their fellow volunteers and residents and a bottomless well of compassion.
Hours from now, while residents start to get ready for work or school, Rogers will sling her backpack over her shoulder and head to Woodlawn Middle School, where she and other volunteers are sleeping in the gym. She’ll rest up, get some food, take care of any personal business and get back to work the next night.
But for now, lights out comes at 10:30, and the residents hunker down for the night. The night crew is ready, with clipboards, walkie-talkies and sharp eyes to scope out anyone who needs assistance after dark. They’ll sleep in the morning.
Photo by Collin Richie.
This story was originally published in the October issue of 225 Magazine.
