Pete was angry.
He was in a shelter in New Jersey, forced to evacuate his orderly home because of Hurricane Irene. It was early the morning of Sunday, Aug. 28, and he was in a university gymnasium, surrounded by cots—alone, amid a sea of 1,100 people he did not know.
Pete is blind, and he has had prostate cancer. He had just soiled himself because nobody had come to help him find the bathroom.
He was fed up, and he let the workers at the shelter know it.
A frustrated Red Cross worker asked Derrick Lea, Islamic Relief USA’s disaster response team manager, to try to help.
But Pete was beyond wanting help at that point. So Lea sat down to just talk.
It was almost dawn, and Lea and others from Islamic Relief USA’s disaster assistance response team had been up all night, trying to help 1,100 stressed and frustrated people packed into the gymnasium at Rowan University. Lea said what helped most was simply listening and talking to the residents.
“These people were probably in the most stressful situation of their lives—forced out of their homes, and at that point, afraid their homes would not be there when they went back,” Lea said. “To sit and converse with them and put their minds on something else … this was what helped calm things in the shelter.”
As Hurricane Irene approached on Saturday, Aug. 27, Islamic Relief USA sent eight-member teams to help at two American Red Cross shelters in New Jersey—the Rowan University shelter, which housed people who were bused from Atlantic City, and a shelter for 500 people at a high school in Holmdel, New Jersey.
When the team arrived at the Holmdel shelter Saturday evening, Red Cross workers were exhausted. “They had worked for roughly the last 32 hours, and they were completely spent,” Lea said. “We were able to relieve all of them so they could get a good night’s rest.
“We ran that shelter for the whole evening, from handing out clothing to feeding people to meeting the needs that came up overnight. The workers that had worked for a day and a half straight were able to grab a cot themselves.”
At the same time, the team at Rowan University—where Pete was trying to rest—was also working all night. The university shelter was the biggest shelter in the state, Lea said.
When Lea’s team arrived, a light rain had started falling. Inside the building—past the row of 50 portable bathrooms—“there were people everywhere, shoulder to shoulder.” Volunteers stood behind tables, and behind them were stacks of clothing, health kits and hygiene kits. And in front of the tables were masses of people waiting for basic items most had never thought they would be lining up to receive.
The evacuees weren’t happy to be away from their homes. They weren’t happy to be packed into a gymnasium on cots amid a dull roar of voices that lasted all night. Some didn’t like the food, and many weren’t happy that the showers hadn’t arrived. They were tired, bored and very stressed.
“A lot weren’t pleased to have been forced to evacuate and they let us know,” Lea said.
Some of them needed clothing, some needed hygiene kits, and some needed games to make the stay more bearable for their children. Lea’s team of energetic young workers in blue, Islamic Relief USA shirts rushed around providing these items.
“When people had a problem, they said, ‘Where are the blue shirts?’ because they knew the blue shirts were going to do everything in their ability to solve that problem,” Lea said.
Most of all, what the residents needed was someone to really listen to them.
Like Pete.
In their conversation, Lea learned that Pete was a Vietnam veteran—a decorated veteran who did two tours of duty. He had two boys and a wife. Then one son was killed in the military, and his other son later died as well. A year later his wife died, and then he went blind.
“Pete had set himself up in an apartment in Atlantic City, and he had everything in a particular place,” Lea said, “and unless he moved it, it didn’t get moved.”
And now this man – who surrounded himself with order to be able to stay independent—was plunged into chaos at an emergency shelter in a gymnasium at Rowan University. He was helpless and in desperate need of a wash and a change.
“We talked about the war, and he said, ‘I wished he had brought my medals with me because I would have liked to show them to you.’ And I told him I wished I could have seen them,” Lea said. “By the time we got done with the talking, I said to Pete, ‘How about if I take you over to the bathroom and get you some washcloths and you can take care of the situation and we’ll try to get you some clothes.’”
And Pete accepted.
Lea attributed successes like these to patience and a smile—integral parts of the Islamic Relief USA disaster relief team’s mission.
“That’s something we emphasize early on—we come into a stressful situation and we try to come with an attitude of helpfulness,” Lea said. “Us being stressed will make the situation worse, so we try to come with smiles and good attitudes, and I think people see that, and there’s a genuineness about it that people really feel.”
A university representative felt it. In her parting remarks on Sunday as the shelter closed and the volunteers got ready to disperse, she was overcome by emotions.
“As she gave her words of appreciation,” Lea said, “she started tearing up, because the partnership that we were able to forge and the emotional support that we were able to give to people who had experienced one of the most stressful situations in their life … it touched some people, and she started crying.”
She also commented that this was the first time many people there had met Muslims, and it was different from what they had seen in the media.
Lea said, “I saw that same type of feeling from not only the workers but also the people we were helping: ‘I’ve never seen a Muslim before and they’re just like me’—they’re surprised and happy about it.”
The Holmdel shelter closed on Sunday, and the Rowan University site closed on Monday.
Residents said goodbye to the team members and went home.
Pete said goodbye to Lea.
“It felt like a friend leaving,” Lea said.
To find out more about Islamic Relief USA’s emergency relief efforts, or for more information about how you can help, visit IRUSA.org.
