Family had a floating house and it went out to sea.

I am back from the Florida Keys, having survived helping Hurricane Wilma survivors. I consider myself a survivor, as well...I survived the Red Cross craziness. Maybe I should start out with what seems to be everyone's first question: how was the experience? Unfortunately I cannot answer that easily. There were many facets of the deployment, both good and bad. Initially it was a chaotic, unwelcoming mess which evolved into different chaos, but with a purpose!
My job there was to do family casework which, in this case, was outreach involving going door to door at every house (or boat) and in every neighborhood in the Florida Keys. In the blazing sun and hair-frizzing humidity. We did damage assessments to homes and people and, based on emergency need, distributed Client Assistance Cards (debit cards) with money on them. I have never seen such devastation before; there were literal mountains of debris (furniture, landscaping, appliances, boats) along Hwy. 1 (the one and only highway through the keys). In some neighborhoods, we couldn't drive to the end of the block, instead we had to carefully make our way around the debris in order to get to some homes. Alternately, the scenery in the keys is amazing. Surrounded by water and palm trees, sail boats and parasailers and wildlife (enormous iguanas, peacocks, huge water birds...and roosters? Roosters love the Florida Keys).
After having a few days to decompress, I'd say it was a good experience. There were families who were desperately in need of our help, so it felt good to be able to provide that help. But it's good to be home, on dry land. What am I thankful for this Thanksgiving? That I don't live on a boat!