Another Sunday at work

Many of the folks who came after Thanksgiving are leaving already. We have had a large group leave, 20 some today, and many new ones rotating in. We will all leave on Dec. 23rd and then the morgue will be back up and running the 26th. It is good to see old friends from previous deployments. DMORT is a small group, and so I will get to see most of my friends before I leave DMORT for good and start working for FEMA.

When we were at the old morgue location in St. Gabriel, someone had an idea that it would be good to bring an abandoned puppy to the morgue compound for "pet therapy". Let me just say that puppies could potentially put all MH out of work. It was awesome! When folks had a bad moment or a major meltdown, I would see them laying in the grass letting the puppy lick them and bark and wrestle. It was amazing to watch. You could see their faces start to relax and watch the tension melt from them. We adopted 3 puppies, one at a time. The first was Iber, because we were in Iberville. One of the DMORT decided Iber was too precious to leave behind and adopted him to live in New York. Belle was next and went to live in Oregon. Then we had Wilma (for the hurricane) and she was adopted to another great DMORT home. Iber was literally taken out of the cage to be euthanized at the 11th hour. Belle and Wilma had also been abandoned and were rescued. They are lucky dogs, but we benefitted more from having them with us than they could ever know. That was the month of October. I write this now because our new location is not really suited for a therapy dog, so we have none here. I have had more comments from folks deployed here that they really miss their pets and that having those dogs with us was more therapeutic than anyone realized. I am going to attach pictures of Iber. Love to all of you, Sandy