1. Supplies
Sometime in the morning…
“Do you need anything?” a woman asked as she got out of a van that had stopped in front of the house.
They gave us a roll of heavy duty garbage bags and a bucket and a mop and a broom and sponges and gloves and breathing masks and bleach and Lysol. They carried them to the house from the van and left them by the front door.
“Thank you,” I heard one of the others say to the woman.
Then the woman got back into the van and rolled to the next house down the street.
2. Chopped Beef Sandwiches
Around noon…
“Are you hungry?” a woman asked from the window of a white pickup truck that stopped in front of the house.
There were three of them: a man, and a woman and their daughter. They had driven from Minnesota.
“How many do you need?” she asked.
The bed of the pickup truck was full of styrofoam to-go boxes each packed with a chopped beef BBQ sandwich, baked beans, and a cookie. There were easily several hundred.
“Thank you,” we said. I gave her a half-hug (hugs not being a thing when working in flood water).
We sat down, some of us in the driveway, some in the grass. We devoured the food in silence.
3. Drinks
Sometime in the afternoon…
“Do you need anything to drink?” a woman shouted from a truck that was slowly rolling down Oak Drive.
“No…” I started to say.
“…water? Juice? Gatorade?”
I had been taking a break, sitting in the grass in the sun. Three rooms of flooded books and the morning had caught up with me.
“Gatorade!” I said. “Oh… Gatorade. Please.”
I stood up and walked to the truck — very slowly.
She gave me a 12 pack of bottled water and an arm-full of bottles of red and grape Gatorade.
“Thank you so much,” I said.
Before I was seated in the driveway, I had sucked down two bottles.