Sorry for the long gap here, our creative juices have been consumed by the jobs that we have been doing, but we were told to take a day off (a Red Cross requirement for volunteers after being deployed a week) so we did.
We are now serving 6000 meals a day from our kitchen, all of which we send out on the 15 ERVS we have assigned to us. We have about 38 ERV drivers, there needs to be two drivers on each vehicle, and the assignments change every day as new drivers arrive or have days off or leave to go home.  Then the destination of each truck needs to be determined, and the number of meals loaded on each one, determined by information that gets phoned into us each day, or based on the number of meals served the day before in our “find and feed” efforts. This is my job, for two feedings a day, starting at 8 am and ending around seven. I rarely sit down, or know what I am really doing! After the second day we got here I was promoted to ERV Coordinator.
JC is still the Yard Dog, which makes my job much easier.  He ccoordinates with the kitchen preparing the meals, sees that the ERVS move through the area in an orderly fashion, are loaded with the correct number of meals, serving utensils, clam shells, snacks, water, “meals ready to eat”, and crew, including a third member on the ERV to assist with serving. This may be another Red Cross volunteer, or occasionally a member of the Baptist Kitchen staff. He also organizes the truckloads of supplies that come in every day, supervises the steamcleaning of the 60 cambros, or hot food containers that get sent out twice a day, and occasionally gets to drive a forklift. His most valuable skill is to yell over the noise of the many generators and diesel engines which surround us.
We have been told that our kitchen operation is the smoothest running of the six in New Jersey! Scary!

this is how I organize the ERVS

We have set up three tents with power and some heat so we are no longer always out in the cold. Helpful when the snow arrived.

we eventually got about three inches

JC operating the forklift in the snow

On the snowiest of days, we joined the rest of the kitchen staff in Atlantic City at a hotel, but the drive down was about 50 miles and this is what it looked like

Out of the windshield, so we have stayed in the CASITA  since then. Today we have moved to Cedar Creek Campground  about 6 miles from the kitchen, and now have power and water. Our generator can take a break.

JC wearing a reindeer hat to cheer up the troops.

My office

more supplies. We all pitch in to unload.

Sorry for the long gap here, our creative juices have been consumed by the jobs that we have been doing, but we were told to take a day off (a Red Cross requirement for volunteers after being deployed a week) so we did.
We are now serving 6000 meals a day from our kitchen, all of which we send out on the 15 ERVS we have assigned to us. We have about 38 ERV drivers, there needs to be two drivers on each vehicle, and the assignments change every day as new drivers arrive or have days off or leave to go home.  Then the destination of each truck needs to be determined, and the number of meals loaded on each one, determined by information that gets phoned into us each day, or based on the number of meals served the day before in our “find and feed” efforts. This is my job, for two feedings a day, starting at 8 am and ending around seven. I rarely sit down, or know what I am really doing! After the second day we got here I was promoted to ERV Coordinator.
JC is still the Yard Dog, which makes my job much easier.  He ccoordinates with the kitchen preparing the meals, sees that the ERVS move through the area in an orderly fashion, are loaded with the correct number of meals, serving utensils, clam shells, snacks, water, “meals ready to eat”, and crew, including a third member on the ERV to assist with serving. This may be another Red Cross volunteer, or occasionally a member of the Baptist Kitchen staff. He also organizes the truckloads of supplies that come in every day, supervises the steamcleaning of the 60 cambros, or hot food containers that get sent out twice a day, and occasionally gets to drive a forklift. His most valuable skill is to yell over the noise of the many generators and diesel engines which surround us.
We have been told that our kitchen operation is the smoothest running of the six in New Jersey! Scary!

this is how I organize the ERVS

We have set up three tents with power and some heat so we are no longer always out in the cold. Helpful when the snow arrived.

we eventually got about three inches

JC operating the forklift in the snow

On the snowiest of days, we joined the rest of the kitchen staff in Atlantic City at a hotel, but the drive down was about 50 miles and this is what it looked like

Out of the windshield, so we have stayed in the CASITA  since then. Today we have moved to Cedar Creek Campground  about 6 miles from the kitchen, and now have power and water. Our generator can take a break.

JC wearing a reindeer hat to cheer up the troops.

My office

more supplies. We all pitch in to unload.

We are in Waretown, N.J., helping to get a food distribution station organized. There is a mobile kitchen here, organized and staffed by the Southern Baptists. Our job is to organize the distribution of the meals. JC is the “YARD DOG” and I am assisting the kitchen manager and the ERV coordinator. We have sent out 1200 meals today and hope to double that tomorrow. The operation is still getting it’s act together and we lack shelter and chairs, but we have a comfortable haven at the end of the day in Caseatahawk! Our crew is in an Econolodge.

Our kitchen is located at a fire and ems training facility in Ocean County, New Jersey

some of our ERV drivers.

the kitchen from our camp site

our lovely campsite

We arrived at our revived destination at about 12:30 today. As we were driving to the DRO, or Disaster Relief Operations, we came through areas which were without power and had long lines at the gas stations, but didn’t appear to have suffered any other damage.  We are near the campus of Rutgers University in North Brunswick, and there are some sizable trees down but the power is on (most of the time).
This is the headquarters for setting up mobile kitchens, assigning ERVs coming in from all over the US, doing disaster assessment which will determine where the ERVs take the meals and cleaning supplies and comfort kits, and dealing with the hundreds of volunteers in from far and wide. Since we did not arrive with our own ERV, we are not yet sure what we will be doing.  They are expecting as many as 2,000 volunteers, so it is an organizational nightmare! Hope we will not be drafted into the “management” strata. Being one of the worker bees is so much more fun!
Stay tuned.

snow plow piles in the Walmart parking lot in Somerset, PA

ERVs gathering for inspection before they can be deployed

organization

disaster assessment

tree down near where our Casita is parked