University Times

Staff Association Council President Rich Colwell has a good excuse for missing last week’s SAC meeting. He was busy dodging fallen lampposts outside of a mall in Ft. Pierce, near Florida’s southeastern coast.

Colwell, manager of computer services for the School of Engineering, is one of three volunteers from the Pittsburgh area manning a Salvation Army mobile kitchen for refugees from Hurricane Frances.

Colwell arrived Sept. 8, driving the mobile kitchen which he says looks like a “big ice cream truck.”

Most days, Colwell said he doesn’t know the temperature, just that it’s hot. He works from 5:30 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. “By the end of the day you’re so tired of looking at food, you don’t want to eat,” Colwell said.

His kitchen fed 1,100 for lunch last Saturday. His comfort station, located near the southeastern coast of Florida, offers refuge to residents in need of food, water, social service assistance and counseling.

The Salvation Army has designated 13 command centers to deploy Salvation Army emergency response teams into affected areas, according to John Edwards, a Salvation Army public information officer.

Consistent meals are needed because many residents are still without power or homes. Conditions are getting better, Colwell said. When he arrived a little more than a week ago, most of the traffic lights didn’t work. Now they do.

As the Florida coast cleans up many hurricane victims are still without answers, Colwell said. “You see a lot of people and their needs are different. Some people say they lost their whole house. They don’t know what to do. They really just stand there and don’t know what to do.” At that point, Colwell or one his colleagues directs victims to social service.

“People walk up to us crying,” he said. “We aim them to the proper agency for housing. Then we feed them.”

The emergency menu consists of meals such as roast beef, chicken sandwiches, mashed potatoes — basically, lots of hot food. Since many people don’t have electricity, hot food is in great demand, Colwell said. So are restrooms.

Supplies and duties change fast with a natural disaster. For example, late last week, on the same day, more portable toilets arrived at Colwell’s mall site as he and his crew ran out of prepared food. They made due with hotdogs. The following day, they contemplated evacuating to make way for Hurricane Ivan. The storm changed course, they didn’t have to leave, but moved their mobile kitchen to a second mall five miles down the road for better visibility and public access.

Colwell said he doesn’t take much for granted after this trip. Clean clothes are a windfall to him. Frances flattened the local laundry mat and the waiting lines at his motel were too long. Luckily, a resident close to Colwell’s Salvation Army post offered to launder his red Salvation Army t-shirts and other clothing.

Just as clean laundry is difficult to come by, so are tarps and rope, Colwell said. “We had a sign for the Salvation Army at the mobile kitchen and I needed rope to tie it up. You can’t get rope. And tarps, people have bought them out because they need them for their roofs.”

Part of Colwell’s job includes picking up supplies at a Salvation Army warehouse. One one trip, he got water, ice, crackers, heating trays and, of course, food. A second trip scored diapers, baby food, pudding and chips. “What we do is see the crowd and figure out what they need.”

Colwell expects to continue his volunteer efforts in Florida until later this week. His immediate supervisor at Pitt, Larry Shuman, School of Engineering associate dean for academic affairs, said: “I understand the seriousness of this hurricane. I had several relatives caught in the storm, trapped without electricity. This was something Rich needed to do.”

Colwell said he was grateful to the workers in his shop in the Colwell has volunteered for the Salvation Army through numerous disasters for about a decade, helping in the aftermath of the Mount Washington tornado, the wind burst at Kennywood park and the plane crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Somerset County on Sept. 11, 2000. But his volunteer efforts extend beyond just serving hot meals, Colwell is amateur ham radio operator. He helped establish Saturn, the Salvation Army’s emergency radio network. During most disasters, ham radio communications are vital if electricity goes down and cell phones jam, he explained. But ham radio couldn’t be utilized in for the Florida hurricane disaster because the network is not established there, said Colwell, who has been president of ham radio club in the greater Pittsburgh area since 1979.

Colwell is modest about his volunteer service for the Salvation Army. “I enjoy helping people,” is the most he will say.

As far as the Florida effort goes, Colwell said he is tired and hot “but satisfied because I’ve helped people and I am healthy.”

–Mary Ann Thomas