Going back for more

By Jennifer Nitson
Corvallis Gazette-Times

After a couple of weeks in New Orleans with an emergency team providing aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina, Philomath residents Peggy Peirson and Dan Kearl spent only a few days at home resting up and telling stories before getting ready to head back and continue recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast.

Members of Oregon's Disaster Medical Assistance Team, a mobile medical unit funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, arrived home exhausted and shell-shocked on Sept. 10 and were put on alert to go back Thursday. The call to fly out can come at any moment.

The scenes they have already encountered at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport top any movie or, for that matter, any experience they have ever witnessed, they said.