UPDATE: This was supposed to post on the 3rd, but my internet connection must have been faulty. I am now in Missouri and am working overtime doing disaster. I'll write sometime soon when I haven't put in a 16 hour day! I'm going to try to get 7 hours of sleep tonight!
The last two weeks we've been busy busy busy doing prescribed burns. It's been so much fun dragging torches and watching the fires. I'm amazed at how much I have learned about fire behavior. It's so interesting. This past Thursday we had a crazy burn. We had to get a variance to be able to do our burn because of wind, but eventually got approval. It then got even more windy and we ended up with tons of spot fires, where the fire jumped over the road that was our line. Because it was pretty dry out as well, these spots blew up pretty quick and had to act fast to get them surrounded and out. It was a tiny taste of what wildfire response will be like this summer. I'm hooked.
I have some pictures on my camera, but unfortunately my cord is in my pack, packed away in the back of the truck. If things had gone according to plan, my team would be rolling into Denver tonight. That's not quite the case, as life has become quite interesting.
In AmeriCorps NCCC, they tell us that the only constant in change. My team is a prime example of that at this moment. We were originally scheduled to have Thursday off to pack, and then take off for Denver Friday morning and arrive on Saturday. Plans changed however when my team asked for, and got approval to stay an extra day in Oklahoma to work on a huge 7000 acre burn scheduled for Friday. We decided to forego our day off and work Thursday on a burn down South. Friday came and we were excited to do the big burn, but ended up disappointed when it was too windy to burn. We would have even been able to use a helicopter to light it. Crazy, huh!? It ended up being a little bit of a blessing because we found out we were going to have a lot of work to do pretty soon.
Thursday night when we got back from our burn, we had a team meeting where Nick, our TL told us plans had changed. Instead of leaving to go back to Denver on Saturday, we were instead headed to Branson, MO to do disaster relief. If you've kept up on the weather lately, you know about all of the crazy weather and that Branson was hit with a tornado. We are currently in Fatetteville, Arkansas loading up on groceries and getting some internet before we get to Branson later this afternoon. We will be there for a minimum of 5-7 days, and a maximum of 30 (i think). We don't know what we'll be doing, but we will be working with the St. Louis Emergency Response Team (ERT). We will be housed in a cabin near Branson.
Life is pretty crazy. The team as a whole is excited to be going, but with reservations of course. It's hard to adjust when we were so close to being back in Denver and were excited about our upcoming Shuffle round and new projects. We know we're capable of helping the people of Branson, and want to do what we can to help. I personally am so excited to be going. I came into AmeriCorps wanting to get some disaster relief experience, and am so grateful I'm going to get it.
I'll try to update again when I can, but as you may have inferred, I have no idea what to expect for the next 5-7 days!
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