PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) – Hundreds of local residents and some from across the nation have turned out to provide a vast array of free aid since Hurricane Charley ravaged the area on Aug. 13.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said that as of Friday 77,000 households had registered for disaster relief in Florida. The Red Cross is preparing 125,000 meals a day and says an estimated 2,200 families have been housed in shelters.
But it is the unofficial aid stations that have become a lifeline for many people.
Hurricane victims need travel only a few blocks on some major thoroughfares before seeing hand-lettered signs offering free water, ice, sandwiches, diapers, blankets and toiletries. Many Good Samaritans just pull up at the first big intersection they see to distribute their aid.
Daily Archives: August 24, 2004
Passing on a Kidney Transplant
I thought it would be more difficult, or maybe more complicated, but it was neither. A transplant surgeon called from the University of Minnesota this morning to tell me they had a cadaver kidney for me (I?ve been on the transplant list for four-and-a-half years). ?I?ll pass,? I said in a quiet but steady voice. ?Call the next person on the list.? The physician wanted a reason. ?I?m still working out some ethical issues with the whole transplant business.? There. It was out before I had a chance to even think about censoring myself.
Hippie Bus
Spud Hilton takes us on a journey with the Hippie Bus:
It’s 5 a.m. and my left leg is wedged irretrievably between a couple of Brits, who are spooning in somnolent bliss as our strangely loaded bus trundles through the Sierra foothills.
Everywhere are bodies on mattresses — a tangle of blurry-eyed Brits, shaggy-headed Germans, curled-up Kiwis — languorously sprawled as if acting out a page of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog, only with more clothes.