Another day at the Astrodome
Family International Volunteer Peter at the Houston Astrodome:
Yesterday we had about 15 Family International volunteers split between the convention center and the Astrodome area in Houston. We also had another team in the Salvation Army center in Pasadena. In the Astrodome area, we had three teams of young people who had a guitar, and went singing from bed to bed. We are still working on getting an area where we can have an educational set-up for the children.
We spent time going from bed to bed in the Astrodome. There was one couple who, like so many, were still searching for their relatives. They had their little nephew with them, and were very positive about their situation; even though they weren’t sure what would happen to them didn’t know how they were going to find their relatives. We spent time talking to them, encouraging them, praying with them, and then left them some reading material. We also spoke to a couple of ladies, an older lady and her relative, who had been totally separated when they evacuated from New Orleans, and just walked into each other in the Astrodome. They were praising the Lord and were very happy.
We then spent some time in the medical center. There is a lot of sickness now erupting among the evacuees. In the medical center they’ve had to set up an area of isolation. When people are sick, they put them in there for 48 hours and watch them and check them and won’t release them until they are sure they are free from contamination. We spent time helping there, controlling the desk at the entrance of people going in and out. They all had to wash their hands going in and wash them when going out. They had to register going in, and register going out, so that there is a record of who’s been in there and why they were there. Tomorrow we’ll start again.
One interesting thing is that the number of evacuees in the Astrodome area is reducing significantly. There were about 16,000 yesterday in the Reliant Arena. Today it is down to about 8,000. They are moving people out very rapidly.