Soundings (3/21/05)
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Guests: Susan Something, Steve from Play it Again Sports, Bill Boyd's wife Diane.
Visiting Rotarians: John Moles from the Big Club.
Announcements
Stew Ellison: The next Fireside will be on Thursday evening 6pm, March 30th at Stew's house. The event is primarily for new members to learn more about the Rotary experience, but it is open to all club members who want to sit in.
Reminder: The next fellowship event will take place Saturday evening 6pm, April 1st at Giuseppe's Restaurant (for dinner), then Mount Baker Theatre for jazz concert.
Art Runestrand: The next Habitat for Humanity event on Saturday/Sunday has been postponed.
John Hulbert â¿¢ Tournament for the Children will take place April 27th (Thursday) at Bellingham Golf and County Club, 1:30pm shotgun start, 18-hole scramble, with BBQ after. Look for the flyer next week, need 25 foursomes (100 golfers total) at $100 each.
Tonja Myers: Reported that the Giving Committee final numbers will be $30,000, plus $3,300 pledged to the Hospital over tree years.
Bucks in the Bay
Bill Boyd ⿢ newspaper article reveals salary of city officials⿦
Tonja Myers â¿¢ thanks to my committee, travels and illness missed meetings;
John Sleeth â¿¢ Happy 321st birthday to Stan Dyer's dad, JS Bach;
Curt Smith â¿¢ Husky win, McEvoy dinner;
Barry Kramer â¿¢ PETS was very good conference, great speakers; Dean Brett â¿¢ gourmet dinner club;
Bill Geyer â¿¢ week in Naples FL with nephews;
Harold Scott â¿¢ we need do reconnaissance on "Grapes and Plates" event in LaConner â¿¢ oh, never mind!
Frank Chmelik â¿¢ dad's 80th BD party;
Orphalee Smith â¿¢ McEvoy dinner.
Upcoming Programs:
March 28: Member talks;
April 4: Amateur magician, John Walton;
April 11: WWU special library division;
April 18: Kidstown for Romanian orphans.
Sergeant at Arms by Pete Rittmueller
Todd Ramsey, Bill Boyd, Lance Calloway, all accountants, Gerald Baron, UW alumni, attorneys.
Program
Bill Boyd introduced two Bellingham firefighters, Beau Whitehead and Dave Stephan, who spent a month in Louisiana last fall helping with Katrina recovery efforts. Katrina struck on Aug 29th as a category 5 hurricane. In the days following the disaster, FEMA sent out a request to firefighters across the country to send teams to help. In Bellingham, 28 firefighters volunteered, but only two (selected randomly) were sent. Other fire departments around the country also sent volunteers.
Beau and Dave were first sent to Atlanta for training and mobilization â¿¢ then eight-man teams were put together. Beau and Dave were teamed up with with 6 guys also from Pac NW. Then, for the next 30 days they helped out around Biloxi, Gulfport and Pass Christian. They mostly stayed in a high school gym, sleeping in cots. They spend long days helping out with the debris collection, as well as just doing whatever needing to get dome to help out the locals. The temperatures were in the mid 90's with high humidity; this produced a lot of toxic mold on house walls where the water had been. Means most houses and structures, if they were left standing after the storm, still had to be gutted and rebuild with clean drywall.
There were massive quantities of debris. Several casino barges were forced inland with destruction. The storm totally destroyed the local industries: tourism and gambling, tree farms and the shrimp industry. The area infrastructure will need to be rebuilt from scratch: Temporary mailboxes; temporary utilities, staggering amount of debris going to new landfills, all news was announced by bulletin boards, for several months the whole area was a cash-based economy. These problems are all on top of an already bad poverty situation endemic to the Deep South.
What to expect, and things to consider in case of an emergency here in Bellingham: Establish a family plan for meeting place, build a 72-hr emergency kit, and copy important documents and ID. Do not expect fast emergency response.
Respectfully Submitted,
Stowe Talbot