Hurricane Ike triage nurse
Monona nurse takes part in hurricane relief

In the years since Hurricane Katrina, the United States has improved its response to massive catastrophic events.

A Monona, Iowa, woman recently was part of such a response, having been involved in relief efforts prior to, during and after Hurricane Ike. Teek Landvogt, a member of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps Reserve, was deployed as a captain for two weeks at Lackland Air Force Base - Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas.

Landvogt said that Reservists from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines who are in the medical field were sent to San Antonio several days prior to Ike slamming into the Texas coast. Federal employees in such areas as pharmacy, social work, ward clerks and other health operations were also sent to the San Antonio area to set up and work in various medical shelters.

One hundred ninety five such people worked at the shelter where Teek was stationed.

"It was huge," said Teek regarding the former aircraft hangar from which she worked in an effort to give aid to evacuees fleeing from the devastation of Ike. She said that the metal and stone structure was about a quarter-of-a-mile long and a city block wide.

While Teek was there, the building housed more than 7,000 people, including Red Cross personnel, Salvation Army personnel, thousands of evacuees, medical personnel and others assisting in the effort.

The building had no air conditioning so large holes had to be punched into the sides and several large air conditioners installed outside. The building had been allowed to go into disrepair for the past several years and vandals had broken in and stripped it of all copper.

Teek, who was in San Antonio from Sept. 10 until Sept. 22, said that the temperature was in the high 90s and very humid for about the first six days and in the 80s an 90s and not as humid after that.

Teek said that the Red Cross worked at one end of the building and the medical shelter was set up at the other. About 7,000 men, women and children were housed in between. "They were from all walks of life," she said. "There were professors, geologists, teachers, all occupations."

Teek said that she had heard that every motel from San Antonio to Arizona was full. Ambulance drivers reported that many people were sleeping in the grassy median strips along the highways. Because of so much traffic, an ambulance ride that normally would take two hours took 12.

Teek was a trauma triage nurse at the medical shelter. She worked with another triage nurse from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. each night. Her nights were fast-paced to say the least.

"I’ve never seen so many ambulances and busses," she said. "It was nothing to see 30 ambulances lined up. There was usually a lot more." People needing medical attention came by plane, helicopter, bus, ambulance and taxi.

Nursing home and assisted living residents were evacuated first, so the medical center treated mostly elderly people with chronic conditions during the first few days. After that, hundreds of people with more acute injuries began arriving non-stop.

As a trauma triage nurse, it was Teek’s job to sort out which patients had the greatest need and the highest priority. She went into ambulances and checked on each patient’s vitals, including pulse, blood pressure, and blood sugar. The medical shelter that Teek was stationed at took on the patients with the highest medical acuity. The three other medical shelters in the area received people with lesser problems.

"People came in with broken arms, broken legs, other broken bones, respiratory problems, rashes, and many other conditions," she said. "There were pregnant women. We had two babies born." One woman was sent to a local hospital for a C-Section and then sent back to the medical shelter for recovery.

"We didn’t know what was coming off of the ambulances," said Teek. People who need surgery were sent to a hospital. The surgery was performed and then those patients were sent back to the shelter for recovery. Teek explained that the medical shelter didn’t have the proper facilities for surgery, but as soon as the surgery was completed, the patient was sent back because the hospitals were overwhelmed. The shelter also did not have a dialysis machine, so those patients also had to be taken to a hospital.

Many people arrived with only the clothes on their back, and so it was often hard to tell what kind of medication they may have needed. People were given new clothes by the Salvation Army.

Their old clothes would often have to be disposed of because they had waded through raw sewage in order to flee Ike. This caused many rashes and respiratory problems. Teek said that the people with the respiratory problems and rashes had to be separated from the other patients and also had to wear masks because there was no way of telling if their conditions were caused by viral infections, bacterial infections or some other communicable infection. "We didn’t know if it was transmittable," she said.

Many patients also had to go through showers, which were kind of like a cattle chute. These patients were hosed down and then disinfected by nurses. There were also some "normal" showers on site.

"The wildest thing was that we had people going through the DTs because there was no way to get alcohol," said Teek. "I had to sit on one woman to hold her down until I got help. She was seizing and seeing bugs and trying to stand up. I couldn’t let her stand up and then fall."

There were also some people with mental health issues, for whom it was hard to determine what medications, if any, they needed.

Teek said that there were two doctors and two physician’s assistants on staff during the night shift. The medical shelter started out with 250 beds but was soon expanded to 270.

"The people just kept coming," she said. "But, it worked really slick, it just flowed. It was very well organized and really worked well. It was a great plan. This whole program was set up after Katrina. The plan is to have things set up before a hurricane."

Teek said that there was a separate building were food was prepared. "We ate a lot of beans and rice," she noted.

The medical shelter had its own little section of 10 porta potties. There were hundreds of porta potties around the building. People slept on FEMA cots throughout the building.

There was no water in the medical shelter, said Teek. But, huge pallets of bottled water were brought in.

Teek noted that 27,000 animals, the vast majority of which were the pets of evacuees, were kept in another large building on the base.

Regarding the whole experience, Teek said, "I think it was a good plan. Everybody really worked well together. Every person that you saw, they lost everything. It makes you feel really grateful for what you have."

"We’re leaving reality as we know it and accepting a greener reality." This is Doug Bator’s explanation of the life-changing decision that he and Laura Smith made when they decided to give up their jobs, sell most of their possessions and travel down the Mississippi on a 25-foot solar-powered houseboat.

They’ve made a commitment to spend a year on the houseboat, but whether or not they remain on the river after that, they feel they have taken a major—and permanent—step toward reducing their impact on the environment.

Bator and Smith stayed in Prairie du Chien for several days, leaving Sept. 28 for points south.

Their story began this summer, when they met through a canoe club in Madison. It didn’t take long for them to realize they had similar ideas, and Smith proposed the trip, stating it was a lifelong dream of hers to go down the river. "It took me about an hour to decide," Bator said, "It had also been a childhood dream of mine."

Bator, a master tradesman, gave up the lease on his apartment and sold all his tools except the cordless, rechargeable ones.

Smith, a former firefighter, appliance repair person and high rise building mechanic, got rid of most of her clothes and sold her antique furniture. "It was a sacrifice," said Smith, "It took a lot of work and emotional detachment to do this, but we want to reduce our footprints on the earth."

They found a 25-foot houseboat with a living space of 20 by 8 feet. The owner wanted $5,000, but with trade-ins he reduced the price to $3,500. Bator estimated they put another $1,650 to $1,800 into solar equipment.

Bator had already dabbled in solar power, and had been using a solar panel and battery to recharge his cordless tools. He installed 20 solar panels on the roof of the houseboat. The panels are connected to four deep cell marine batteries wired in parallel. That provides the energy to run their lights, two computers, a DVD player and LCD TV set as well as recharge their power tools, including a chain saw. When they have excess energy, they use it to run their small refrigerator. At one point they experienced four sunless days in a row, and still had enough power for their needs.

If they aren’t cooking over an open fire on land, they use solar cooking panels. "You can cook almost anything with those," said Smith. They use bicycles for land transportation to get groceries and run errands. Bator converted a wheeled child carrier into a carrier for groceries and gas. He finds that biking rather than driving on land has a health bonus: "I’ve lost three notches on my belt in a month just by not driving anywhere." Their expenses, they said, are "staggeringly low."

They’ve made some interesting discoveries about their solar panels. They have a voltage meter that shows how much energy is going to the batteries, and, when there’s a full moon, said Smith, they find that energy goes into the batteries. The same thing happens when they park the boat under a street lamp.

They started their trip in Wabasha, Minn. August 20, and marvel at the "spectacular, breathtaking scenery." They have watched eagles swoop down near their boat and fly off with fish. Whatever the wildlife, they notice, they’re able to get much closer to it by boat than by foot. Sunrises and sunsets are beautiful on the water. They have books and movies for entertainment in the evening. Smith said that, according to her family genealogy chart, she is Mark Twain’s second cousin four times removed. The connection may be remote, but she is reading Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi as they proceed down river.

They plan to continue south until they find a place warm enough to stay for the winter. Then they plan to find jobs, which they do not expect to be difficult because of their skills.

They hope to be able to increase their "green power." They are considering, for example, marine wind power generated by windmills attached to the boat. They’re also looking for trolling motors which could be recharged through solar power. Then they could almost completely eliminate use of their outboard motor, except for getting through locks and past barges. They would also like to run the refrigerator completely on solar power. Depending on what happens at the end of their commitment, they would like to upgrade to a bigger boat with a deck on top and more room for solar and wind power.

As they make their stops along the river, they talk to people about their lifestyle change. People have been very interested and helpful. For example, a man in Wabasha loaned them about $500 worth of river maps, asking only that they send them back when finished, and a couple in Prairie du Chien brought them a box full of canned deer meat.

Hawk Watch at Effigy Mounds Oct. 3, 4, 5

"Getting the lead out of our ^{recreational activities is the healthiest thing to do for
our kids and our eagles," said Hawk Watch coordinator Pam Kester.}