Hurricane relief efforts hit home for Red Cross worker, friend of relocated business owner

"There are no words to describe the devastation I've seen since I arrived in New Orleans." Those were the first words uttered by Spencerport resident and American Red Cross Communications Associate Aaron Baker when he was reached by cell phone on September 7. Through the spotty transmission, Baker, who also serves as a volunteer firefighter in Spencerport, said he has been dispatched from the Rochester area to the disaster site for three weeks - he left on August 28.

Staff members are dispatched and respond to natural disasters based on their qualifications and the roles in which they serve with the Red Cross, he said.

"I've been assigned to public affairs," he said. "I've been responsible for dealing with national and international media as well as internal and external communications with my unit."

Baker said he spent his day in Louisiana in Marrero. "If you look at a map of the city, the Mississippi river runs right through it and we're on the south side," he said.

Up until September 7, Baker said he had been staffing the public affairs area at one of the largest shelters in Baton Route River Center Complex.

"We've had more than 5,000 evacuees staying at the shelter," he said. "We've also been out assessing the damage in the area. You just can't understand the scope of the devastation until you see it for yourself - television images don't begin to compare to what it's really like out here."

This is Baker's first national assignment and he said no words can describe the scenes he has witnessed. "Unbelievable, beyond compare and primitive," he said of the city's destruction. He was not located in an area that was facing mandatory evacuation but neighboring Jefferson Parish was one of the areas under the evacuation order.

"We do have a curfew that runs from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.," he said.

"You literally have to be down here to believe for yourself the amount of land mass that has been affected by the hurricane," he said. Even more important than the physical area that was touched by Hurricane Katrina's impact are the individual lives that have suffered losses.

"It's heartbreaking to see the level of despair in peoples' eyes when they come to the shelters. They have nothing but the clothes on their backs," he said.

The magnitude of the disaster is unprecedented for the Red Cross forces, he said.

While Baker is down helping hurricane victims with the bare essentials such as food, water and shelter, his wife and children are at home in Spencerport awaiting his return.

Baker has been helping make a difference in the lives of the residents of Louisiana but has also been personally touched by the disaster. "My brother is a doctor in New Orleans and was trapped in the city at the Lindy Boggs Medical Center," he said. "He was under mandatory orders to report to the hospital to help staff it. They had no power and were dealing with more than 400 patients who needed dialysis, were on assisted breathing apparatus and so many who required critical medical care."

He and his brother, Dr. Marc Baker, were out of touch for several days after the storm hit, Aaron said. "We finally were able to text message each other so I found out that he was safe," he said. "It's a different situation when I came down here thinking I was going to be helping strangers but then learning that my brother was one of the victims."

It's been a rough go, Baker said, but it's been rewarding to be involved in helping the victims cope.

"I didn't understand the scope of it until I got down here and started living it," he said.

Another local connection

Louise Miller, former owner of the Spencerport village Bunny Patch business, and her husband, Hugh, were in the midst of the hurricane, her friend Evelyn Coleman said. Miller is also known to Spencerport area residents because she offered art lessons to many area residents.

Coleman said Miller and her husband now live in Biloxi, Mississippi and evacuated their home but decided to weather the hurricane in their business. Coleman said they felt the building in which the business was housed was stable enough to withstand the hurricane's wrath.

"She lived three blocks from the gulf and when the storm came they left their house and went to her art studio," Coleman said. "Louise said the whole bottom floor of their house was destroyed and the winds blew off a portion of the roof."

Coleman said the Millers have now relocated to a hotel in Monroe, Louisiana, which is about 150 miles from New Orleans.

"Louise told me that she'd never stay through another hurricane and she said that the debris formed about a 10 foot barrier between their building and the water," Coleman said. "Louise said that Hollywood could never portray a disaster as bad as this one."