Volunteers donate countless hours to help evacuees

Dozens of black rectangles containing the names of Hurricane Gustav evacuees covered the dry erase board. Each small shape representing a life temporarily reduced to a cot in the Maytee Fisch Convocation Center.

Anne Viviano was served as Charge Nurse for the shelter.

“I make sure that all the patients that are here are really here, kept a list of them updated, and if somebody goes to the hospital I keep track of that,” she said. “I keep track of who is on dialysis and who is on oxygen therapy, actually keeping everything in order so that we know what’s going on, who’s who and where they are.”

The organizational structure of the shelter combined lessons from hurricanes Katrina and Rita and several years of planning. The only variable in the details was the reliance on volunteers to staff the shelter.

“We ask physicians in the area to assist, and our faculty are the head nurses. They ask the students to do whatever they need to do,” said Carol Killingley, administrative services officer.

Killingley coordinates volunteer opportunities for the University. She immediately issued a campus-wide e-mail asking for volunteers, and more than 135 students, faculty and staff had answered as of noon on Sept. 3.

“The volunteers are vital, especially the nursing students. They’ve been on duty since Saturday evening. We also had students who set up the beds before the evacuees arrived on Saturday. They’ve been serving meals, doing laundry and some miscellaneous tasks for the nursing faculty,” Killingley said. Jenny Chilton, a nursing faculty member, volunteered the day the shelter opened.

“We couldn’t have done it without the volunteers because everyone pitched in. There was no ‘come on you have to work’ because people have just shown up,” she said.

Viviano credits community spirit for the shelter’s success. “I think Tyler in general just really cares about the people and makes a conscious effort to help,” she said.

“UT Tyler has been great with everything, especially the supplies we’ve needed., Vivano said. “The Army came through and brought us 500 hygiene kits. They have really done a great job of keeping us up with the supplies we need.

“As far as medications go it’s been really easy because even when the pharmacists aren’t here at night, the doctors are able to write a prescription and call it in. We have a runner go pick it up.” The level of care provided by the volunteers did not go unnoticed by evacuees. Della Edwards, a Beaumont evacuee, said she was impressed by the care she and others received at the shelter. “Some of the elderly are by themselves and they are really taking good care of them. This school’s really teaching them well,” Edwards said.

“These good doctors and nurses are helping everybody. It’s just like being in a regular hospital,” she said. “Only better.”

The experience benefitted volunteers as well, said Stephen Williamson, a senior nursing student. Usually six patients are the most he is assigned at his job with a local hospital. In the shelter he was assigned 16.

“This is great training,” he said. “This is what it’s all about.” Despite balancing two jobs and a full schedule of classes, Viviano enjoyed the experience. “I would honestly say out of all my nursing career, this is the best experience I’ve had,” Viviano said. “You really get to see the conditions that people are in and interact with so many different people.” Chilton said no one will soon forget the lessons they learned last week.

“It was a perspective altering experience, for sure,” Chilton said. “You hear a lot of judgment related to New Orleans and Katrina and it’s easy to sit at home and say, ‘How could you not get yourself out of that?’ Then you see these people and they really are just helpless.

“It was great to be here to try to make them feel welcome, that we were glad they were here and that they were safe.”

“I can’t begin to tell you all the things that have happened,” Chilton said. “I will be looking back from down the road when I go ‘wow’.