About 150 refugees from Louisiana are here in Keller at the First Baptist Church.  Our CERT was activated to provide organizational assistance and coordination to the church members as they set up their shelter.  Fortunately, the church has lots of volunteers to handle all of the operational tasks, since our CERT is still a fairly small organization.  We were brought in because we’ve had training in the Incident Command System.  Many of us also took a last-minute crash course on Red Cross shelter management on Friday.

The refugees arrived late last night (actually early this morning).  So far, everything is going fairly well, and I didn’t see anyone causing trouble.  Everyone I’ve seen has seemed grateful to have a place to stay along with meals, air conditioning, and showers.

Our CERT is covering their office from 6:00am to 10:00pm each day to provide whatever assistance they need.  I’m going to be doing four hour shifts at various times through Tuesday.  We’re still working out the logistics beyond that, as it appears that the shelter could be open for up to three months.  Although quite a few people have left the shelter, new people are being sent over as the old ones leave.