Mods saw this on another board and wanted to pass it along.....I was crying by the end.
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 12:09:57 -0000
Subject: Story from the mod squad
I posted this story to my group and I was asked if I can fw to you
folks as well. And I see you are moderating message. Which is good.
lol. If you dont want to post this that is ok. I thought it was a
good example of how freecycle is working for others. I did e-mail
charlotte to let her know I was shareing her story with my group and
she was ok with that. Several others are useing it as well.If you
dont want to post this I will understand.
Diane
MLG freecycle.
Subject: Hurricane Frances/ I am back
Hi to all my fellow mods. I hope that the following won't upset the
group since it is not related to Mod squad business, but wanted to
let the many who emailed me and wished us well; that we did get
through it. Thank you for the care you showed me before this.
We were one of the counties in Florida braced for a direct hit, I am
so sorry it came in on Palm Beach as they weren't as prepared as we
were here in Brevard. I do hope that all there survived it and came
away with most of what they started with.
Brevard/Indian River/Martin/Palm Beach Counties got the worst of it.
I haven't heard from any of the other mods in those counties and
didn't see anything posted here from them.
Being right across from the Indian River which is about five miles as
the crow flies from the beach, and owning a mobile home, we were
under mandatory evacuation. The storm was to have hit us on Friday
night, but didn't come ashore till Saturday. This gave us a bit of
time to get a few things out of the home. I didn't expect to see it
when we returned.
Our home is quite destroyed. We lost our over roof which is a second
one placed a few feet above the ceilings. My daughters bedroom, an
addition was ripped completely away from the home, and demolished,
all that is left of it is the slab it was based on. We do have
someone else's roof in our lawn as well. The remaining roof is
precarious, and all in all, it will most likely be condemned. We were
allowed to return back today, and have spent the day, attempting to
clear the metal, glass and ruined furnishings. We did not have
insurance since June, our jobs went part time, so unfortunately we
had to make a choice between making the mortgage payment and paying
the increased insurance payments.
We have just within the last hours got power and water back. I was
pleasantly surprised, didn't expect it for many days if not weeks.
Most of our county had been without power since Friday, and water
since Saturday. We are staying here for now, we will see what happens
as the next days pass.
It is pretty bad here in our county, there is no gasoline within 70
miles and no ice. FEMA is to arrive tomrrow to give water and ice.
This would have been wonderful yesterday for us, but there are many
that are still without power and water is not to be drank unless
boiled; hard to do with no electric. I am glad that the water and ice
will go further; since a good deal of us do have power, think we are
down to about 4 million in the State overall.
I opened our boards up on Thursday to off topic posts so the
freecyclers could support each other as they waited for the hit, and
have a place to come to afterwards to get helpful information. It is
still open for this, we have freecyclers who were able to get out of
the State and needed badly to know what was still here for them.
We were completely cut off except for one AM station here who
broadcast on a generator since Friday morning. They invited callers
who had phones to call them with updates on everything you could
imagine. After the storm, the callers gave info to all on what
survived, where to get those last drops of gas, who had ice. It was
terrific.
Those old battery powered radios were all we had as we listened to
the storm approach.
To wind up, boy some pretty wonderful people in Freecycle groups.
Today as we dragged metal and glass away, a van pulls up. One of my
co mods, Marsha Barton stepped out. She said she had to find out how
we fared and wanted to know what she could do to help us. Our first
concern was to get word to our relatives out of state that we were
okay, and to ask one of them to contact FEMA for us. All phones here
were out, most cell phones useless with jammed signals and downed
towers.
She took down all of our personal info to have a relative contact
FEMA to get the ball rolling. The faster you contact,the faster they
can start to access damage. She had driven from the Northern part of
our county, no power at her home; still here she was. She told me
that my other co mod Karen Levesque was frantic to know if we were
alright. None of us has any access to gasoline till the trucks arrive
here, but Marsha was using that precious gas to find out how we
fared. Karen has offered us a roof over our heads for as long as we
need it. If we lived in her city, I would take her up on it, but the
kids are to go back to school on Thursday here so we are trying to
stay within 20 miles of home.
Today is 4 months to the day I saw the first mention of freecycle and
opened the group here.
To the new mods here, stick around, give it some time. There is so
much good that this whole concept has given to our communities. I am
so proud of my group, they just never cease to amaze me. Did I
mention that we have no access to buy things without having cash, no
phone lines: No credit cards, no checks accepted, banks had limited
us to very low amounts to withdraw ahead of the storm. My co mod with
no power at her home, was worried that we might need help.
She returns to my home in two hours, hands me a list of info from
FEMA: SHE made the call on her cell with it going in and out. She had
set us up with a phone interview, had all the info written down I
could possibly need, and hands me a notepad, there 4 pages back was a
twenty dollar bill. For gas she said, after holding it back for days,
I had to wipe my eyes. Kicking the dirt didn't work this time.
Did I know these two great moderators of mine before they joined my
group? Nope, but aside from my son, these were the two people most
concerned with my safety and comfort. You can't buy that folks.
At the risk of sounding sappy again, I gotta say it:
This concept of yours Deron; this simple thing started to give the
earth a tiny break, is so much more than that. To me it represents
more than a way to get free stuff. It is a way to find and know these
wonderful people that I might never have known had it not been for
that night I stumbled on the word freecycle. I don't even remember
where I saw it, I jumped in head first and didn't look back. Yes I
have had my patience tried, yes I have wondered if it was worth it.
But I am awfully glad I stuck it out. Not to say we won't have
challenges as we grow. Four months ago when I pushed that start a
group button, there were less than 90K total members, now we fast
approach half a million. Astounding!
To my friend Pastor Ken, I don't know how to say thank you the right
way. Those emails you sent me that night as I was trying hard not to
panic meant the world to me. Please thank your church for holding us
up here. From 145 mph to 115. The difference in life and death to us
here.
And Thank You Deron! for that light (!) that clicked on that day, as
frazzled as you may become, never think it doesn't matter all that
much, or it wasn't worth it.
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