VOLUNTEERS
Skeptical about what anyone in the comfort and safety of the Annapolis Valley could do with events unfolding in other time zones, I joined her to make sure she didn’t kill herself volunteering. That evening, we were part of a six-person Valley team that drove to the Red Cross Citadel in Halifax. The building was pandemonium. The hallways were filled with people and boxes of personal care items ready to be rushed to wherever needed. Every desk seemed encircled by people, like dozens of mini-command centres. It was movement and voices and ringing telephones and hands waiving papers at whoever would snatch it and run. I imagined this was what the 1929 stock market crash looked like.
At about 10 p.m., our group was assigned to open the Dartmouth High School as a reception centre for passengers on an Al Italia 747. A team from the phone company installed a phone bank so passengers could call anywhere in the world for free. The military arrived with hundreds of cots and quickly converted the gym into a large dorm. Caterers delivered hot, cold and kosher foods. DHS students opened up the computer lab and, working with custodians, moved big screen TVS into the cafeteria so when diverted passengers arrived they could see what had happened. Then residents began showing up demanding to take home stranded passengers. The passengers weren’t yet here, but Nova Scotians were ready. They told us they cleaned their guest rooms or pulled rec room sofa beds open, and/or sent the kids to stay with neighbours or grandparents so they had room for these strangers. Everyone felt it was important that these uninvited guests knew they had a friend.
When the diverted passengers arrived, our first task was to process them. We had half a dozen tables lined up on the gym’s stage. Passengers filed on stage, not to receive a graduation certificate, but to provide the International Red Cross with basic information: name, address, nationality, any medical conditions, travel details and permission to share with anyone searching for them. Somewhere, some group compiled this information so frantic family, friends and colleagues around the world could learn the fate of their loved ones.
In the cafeteria, I saw one 50-something New Yorker tightly gripping her sides as she rocked back and forth, staring at the TV. She couldn’t stop watching the planes fly into the towers. Eventually, we learned she lived five blocks from the Twin Towers and what was on television was basically the view from her living room window. She was so traumatized by these images she couldn’t be alone. We discretely arranged for another woman to accompany her to the washroom and stay at her side.
Members of the clergy – ministers, priests, a rabbi – also came by, walking the walk of the basic tenet of all faiths, “do unto others …”
Just before dawn, our group of volunteers handed over the school and visitors to another Red Cross team and returned to the Valley. We arrived home at 6:30 a.m. At 8:30 a.m., with flights still grounded, we were asked to go to Camp Aldershot, which was pressed into service as a reception centre for 1,500 diverted travellers.
At Aldershot, like most host venues, medical teams were on-site, to check passengers who were not feeling well. Those who didn’t have their meds were provided with free prescriptions. Some were transferred to hospital for more detailed diagnostic tests and treatment, and their doctors informed.
Volunteers came to the camp offering tours of the area. Local women delivered food, offered laundry services and took people shopping. I overheard one young woman telling a newfound friend among her fellow passengers, “This woman, a complete stranger, took me shopping for underwear!” “Nooooo!” said her suddenly jealous friend. “YES! Can you imagine some stranger at home taking you shopping for panties!?!” “You are so lucky.”
One who wasn’t so lucky was the young mother who suffered a miscarriage due to the stress.
It was only when I saw Michael Moore’s movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, I learned people were told not to remove anything larger than a purse from an aircraft. On the ground at the time, volunteers didn’t know this. We didn’t know that the slow de-planing (up to 14 hours) was because all flight manifests were being checked for more terrorists, and luggage, cargo and aircraft were searched for weapons and bombs. Consequently, we had thousands of people without basics like toothbrushes, toothpaste and combs.
In response to these needs,
CFB Greenwood sent truckloads of towels and linens to Aldershot. Local stores, like Sobeys and Lawton’s, donated personal care items. 9/11 taught me there is a weird practicality to disaster. People have greater patience and empathy if they can shower and brush their teeth.
At Aldershot, a woman housed told me she woke up that first night to find a man crawling across the floor of her room. He immediately identified himself as a soldier, apologized for startling her and explained since she was given his bed, he just wanted his wallet
in the nightstand.
On the second and third days when the stress and forced sharing of items like shampoo and conditioner got to a couple of people, an American businessman on a one-day Londonto-new York business trip said, “You should put up a sign asking for donations. Let them know you’re volunteers, that this is donated stuff. They think the airlines or government are paying for this. They’re not used to kindness of this scale.”
In a way, it was like a delayed returning of the favour for the way Boston came to our aid after the Halifax Explosion.