A story from the trenches...
Last Friday, I spent the day helping a man, Eugene Hamm, try to search for his wife. They were seperated leaving Louisiana after the flood. His wife, Carol, went on a military rescue truck with her dad to get medical attention, and Eugene was left behind with his teenage son and the son's girlfriend.
Starting about 7 am, we called the Red Cross, then started surfing message boards to see if she had listed her name and location on any of them. Since Eugene is currently transient and homeless, I listed by cell number as a way to contact him. Honestly, I didn't know if we would ever cross information paths with Carol. Since just about every television station has set up a "Survivors of Katrina" message board, there are alot of places to search. We searched until lunch, then I began to encourage him to make a plan about what he and his son would do, not dependent upon finding his wife. He was resistent.
After lunch, I went back to helping another family get in touch with scattered relatives. They were using my cell phone when it received a call. It was a lady in Pearland. She said that she read a post on the Yahoo Message board for Carol Hamm. She saw Carol on the CNN news live from Atlanta. Carol was in the studio, sending out a message to Eugene.
We tracked down the info for CNN Atlanta, then they sent us to the Red Cross Atlanta. When we called them, Carol was standing right there. We handed Eugene the phone and all started crying.
A good day in Social Work.