The Biloxi Beacon

[cmpentecost]

Seeing the emotional side of the whole project is undescribable.  I have an entirely new perspective on what the victims of Katrina went thru.  When a person comes in with a box of photos and breaks down in tears as they start to go thru them, your heart breaks.

Chris

[beckysell]

Glad to hear it is such a success!!!  I'm thinking about you all from NY.

[John]

Great job guys.... really wish I had been able to make the trip, the reports coming back are great.

[klassylady25]

::) Chrsi....   People are what it's all about. These are the true survivors. 

[glennab]

Post Biloxi post:

Hi volunteers.  The Florida contingent of the Biloxi Team is safely home.  I caught a flight at 2 this afternoon while several of our crew was whooping it up at a birthday party for an elderly lady for whom OPR had done restorations on a previous run.  The rascals!  Lauren Terry, who lives about an hour from Dave and crew flew home at 4.  Two wonderfully dedicated gentlemen who DROVE to Bilox left for home early this morning; Ed for a 10-hour drive to Illinois and Mike (the Ogre -- he claims -- but he's full of delta mud!) for a 20-hour drive to Wisconsin.

I have a pretty extensive journal and a mind that won't stop going over all the incredible experiences of the trip.  I can tell you that OPR was represented by a group of the most wonderful people I've ever met (I would have expected no less).  We cried, we laughed, we took in, if I remember Dave's estimate, approximately 2500 images by the end of Saturday.  We met with and talked to some of the most exceptional survivors.  No one complained about the limit we set on the photos we could accept.  We heard unforgettable stories of loss, courage and optimism.  I suspect I'm not going to be in the "real" world for a week or so.  I'll try to send you bits and snippets from my journal in the coming weeks.  Right now I'm so pooped I'm about to fall on my face -- and I have to be at work tom'w, so I'll say goodnight, and I genuinely wish you all could have been there.

Hugs!

Glenna

(P.S.  THERE WAS NO KNITTING ON THIS TRIP; LET ME MAKE THAT PERFECTLY CLEAR!)

[klassylady25]

Welcome home, welcome home, welcome home!!   :loveit:

[pcraft]

Rest well and welcome home Glenna and the whole Biloxi crew... 
Bless you all...

[sanbie]

Welcome home everyone...I look forward to reading snippets from your journal...
2500 photos..wow...you guys were sure kept busy!!

Sanbie

[Hannie]

Welcome home Glenna!

Hope you'll feel rested this morning, looking forward to your bit s and snippets!

Hannie

[Tess (Tassie D)]

Welcome back everyone. Can't wait to hear all the stories.

[kiska]

You really think we'll hear ALL the stories?   ;D

[cmpentecost]

I am still in New Orleans, as my flight isn't until 5:45 pm.  I wandered the French Quarter for awhile this morning, and then...I got to meet one of the families I restored photos for!  I had all of the restored photos with me for the Melerine family and hand delivered them.  It was wonderful to give the photos back to them in person.  They were SO grateful for what we have done.

I'll post a few of the pics I took when I get home.

Chris

[Mhayes]

Chris,

How great that you got to meet the family; even better was the chance to see their reaction to the restored photos! Like the rest of us, I can't wait to see the pictures and hear the stories. It was funny to see that you are still in New Orleans, since I was wondering if you were home recuperating--guess that comes later.

You will be headed back through three time zones--Eastern, Central, and Mountain? Unless you have too many connecting flights, bet it will seem funny to arrive home earlier than all the time you spent in the air.

GREAT JOB  :up:

Margie

[glennab]

Hi again!

Gosh, I did forget to mention that person from Montana -- what the heck is her name???  It'll come to me, I'm sure.  (Seriously, our photo coordinator, Charlene, is one heck of a woman!  She's smart, compassionate, fun -- she'll be family to me forever! She handled the loss of her luggage and agonized eyes [because her contact solution, etc. was in said luggage] with good humor.  She was kind enough to give me a tour of what she does to get the photos organized, labeled, distributed.  No small job, I'm here to tell you.

I'm sure you'll see photos, but here's a description of the set-up while we were gathering the images (I've always been curious about this).  We were in the large meeting room of a library.  Along one wall were 3 copy stands, where the photos were captured with the digital cameras.  Jan, Lauren, Ed and Angie did the copy work, and I suspect they'll all need massage therapy after bending over the cameras for 3 days, with the photos on the floor or raised on boxes, books, whatever was necessary to get them in the correct position.  They were either kneeling (one of our "customers" saw the position they were in and was wonderful enough to bring in 3 knee pads to ease the pain a bit) or sitting -- hovering over the cameras in the most awkward positions imaginable.

Dave, Mike Morones and Chris were on the other side of the room, uploading the images from the camera cards to their laptops, naming them, positioning them and taking care of the accompanying paperwork.

Angie (when she wasn't on a camera), Val, Mike "the Ogre" and I were at a table in the middle of the room facing the door, and we greeted the people who came in, got their paperwork filled out, looked through the photos to determine which were salvagable and which weren't.  It was heartrending to watch people going through boxes or bags full of photos, choosing their favorite 20, then 10, then 5 photos (the number diminished as we realized we'd have to limit the number or we'd never be able to help everyone who came in).  One gentleman became so overwrought trying to choose that he broke down.  Chris was immediately at his side comforting him -- he was doing his sorting next to her computer station.

We had to pry many photos from frames, or try to finesse the ones we could from album pages with the plastic covering stuck to them.  Some came out easily; some we had to leave in the plastic, because the emulsion and plastic had melded.  The best part of being on the "reception" team was our interaction with the folks who brought in their photos.  The stories were beyond belief, and we were treated to true southern charm and decency from everyone who came in.  And this will forever amaze me -- not one person I helped complained about ANYTHING!

Favorite and most critical supplies were paper towels, hand sanitizer (you wouldn't believe the muck that had become embeded in many photos, albums and frames), water (for cleaning obviously removable debris and for drinking!), a donated pair of needle-nose pliers (to pry the metal fasteners away from frames in order to extricate the glass and photo), "THE TOOL" -- a multi-purpose cutting, prying -- you name it implement, scissors, X-acto blades, pens, glass cleaner and measuring tapes.

Most of the photos were stuck to the glass, so we had to leave the junk that was between the photo and glass and just clean the top as best we could.  (This gives you some idea of the effort involved in just prepping the photos to be captured by the cameras.  It's also why so many photos have been "difficults!")  We didn't accept photos that were without faces or with faces that couldn't be recognized, so this batch should be mostly easy and medium difficulty photos.  There were a few bad ones that we just couldn't turn away, but even though they'll be difficult, none will rival the last batch we've been working on.

We had chairs set up against the wall by the doors for people to wait either for their photos to be returned to them when the capture was complete, or to bring their photos to us.  Many times the chairs were full and we had people standing.  We had only a few "down" times.

It was a siege of 3 tough days, and I don't know about the rest of the team, but I'll go back in a heartbeat and do it again.

What you really need to know is what a brute Dave Ellis is.  He whipped us, verbally abused us -- it was awful -- he even threatened to strangle me with my tape measure.  (If you believe that I'll sell you a piece of prime beach property in Biloxi! -- well the tape measure threat is true.)

Our president is actually as wonderful as I thought he'd be.  He looks about 20 (he can tell you how old he REALLY is), and he has a wonderful sense of humor, despite being pretty serious a good portion of the time.  He managed to keep us all organized and the operation going smoothly despite the fact that most of us had never made a run before.  He ran and got supplies when we were low, made sure we had lunch (that's a whole story in itself) and made sure we all got wherever we needed to go.  He's an amazing guy.  Don't tell Angela, but I love him to pieces!

More later!

Glenna

[Mhayes]

Glenna,

Your post is the next best thing to being there! It was very impressive the way you guys worked and the amount of pictures that you were able to download. I was surprised at the amount of work to get the photos ready; I guess I thought they would be ready to be handed over "as is." Did you ever get nervous having to use pliers? It must have been very hard to have someone break down and resist the urge to do all of their photos.

What days were the busiest and what was the normal wait for those who came?

You guys are GREAT!  :loveit:

Margie