Deaf Evacuee Reunited
From Peter:
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Deaf Woman Reunited
We had about 20 volunteers from The Family International on Day Four. About 10 of them were in the George R. Brown Convention Center which is on the other side of the Astrodome area. Later in the day John B and his team came in and did a clown show there. Most of them spent most of their day going around talking to people and encouraging them. Tim was working with Carolyn who was trying to set up some kind of missing persons system — it exists, but it exists in pieces all over the place — and they’re trying to pull it together. So Tim was working in the Convention Center, Carolyn was working in the Astrodome Center and they will hopefully be able to pull something together so they will have a complete listing of everyone who’s registered, so if somebody comes and says they’ve lost my son or my daughter, they’ll be able to check if they are in the area. That will be very good and seems to be going very well.
Topaz and I went in really early to the Astrodome area because we’re trying to set up something for the children so we can have an area that we can use with tables for activities, have magazines, etc. But we spent most of our day in the medical area. They are always looking for someone with a special skill and they asked if anyone knew sign language. Topaz is able to do some sign language so she offered her services and went in. The lady was about 40, she has five children — she’s separated from all of them, and one of them she’s lost completely — a 16-year-old.
She was suffering from all sorts of things — she was dehydrated, she was dizzy and not in a very good way altogether, and because she was deaf it was hard to communicate with her. So Topaz started talking to her and they brought in another interpreter and together they established that she was pretty sick and she’d lost her 16-year-old completely, though she thought the rest of her children were in Dallas. We managed to get the lady the medications she needed. She was in the medical center and we had to get her back to the Astrodome area where she’s been staying and they had set up an area for deaf people. And when we got her back there all the other deaf people who were sitting in the area were gesticulating in sign language and it seemed that before we got her back there one of her relatives had turned up from Dallas and not only had they turned up to collect her but they’d found her 16-year-old daughter as well. So that was really a tremendous thing, if you’d seen the lady safe and happy! At least we saw one victory that day, which was really good. We spend some more time working in the medical center, and we also spent some time trying to put together the plans for this children’s education program which hopefully will get off the ground in the next couple of days. And we left about 6:00 after a really good day. God bless you! Have a nice day!
