I've spent the past 18 or so hours at the airstrip where I'm keeping the Cessna 206, working on reports and relaxation (R&R, a different way...). It's been a good thing for me, to be alone for some time. I've stayed in one of the RVs we've been using. I spent a little time working to fix things on it that were torn up in its use in New Orleans.

This is a very peaceful spot. There are water birds and ponds here, and watching them is a nice way to take a break from what feels like homework. The air conditioner works when I'm running the generator, which was nice yesterday afternoon, but I've not run it this morning, except to charge my laptop.

The trees here in southern Louisiana are part of what makes this place special. There are many hardwoods, and some of them have Spanish moss hanging from their limbs. These beautiful trees did get blown over in many places, and that seems to be the most problematic damage we've seen in many places, where the trees either brought down power lines or disrupted the structural integrity of homes. I saw a trailer in Washington Parish that was cleanly split in the middle by a single trunk.

Washington Parish has been hit hard, and while I was there I saw very little recovery work going on there. We saw much need, though. The clinic we ran there was well-attended, and most of the patients we saw had no access to their primary doctors after the storm. We fielded questions like "When will we be able to see our doctors?" and "How can we get our records?" Of course, we didn't have good answers for them.

I would like to have a few teams of doctors and nurses to go out and write prescriptions for these people. In my mind, Remote Area Medical's primary mission should be to find the forgotten people here and provide for them what we can. These won't be assignments we get from DHH or anyone like that, but from word-of-mouth from local leaders. If I had these teams, with vehicles to get around in, I think we could impact a good many folks' lives. It would also be nice to be able to type these prescriptions and have them printed out. It would be faster than having to hand-write scrips, and would allow us to document easily. That was the backlog we had in Vernon.

Another idea I've had in this setting is to maximize our mobility with the use of motorcycles. Teams of three bikes with medical professionals riding them, carrying packs of meds and supplies and a small chainsaw, a satellite phone, a GPS, and with a support team at base and possibly air support, could make a real difference in these places. There are plenty of organizations who are prepared and capable of attacking problems in areas of more dense population, but there's little glory in the service of the marginalized populations here, and the rural folk.

I don't know how useful these ideas are now during this disaster (because of the late timing this time), but in future disasters, I could see a group of maybe 9 or 10 light enduro-style bikes loaded into the DC3 making our team light and very mobile. While I'm totally in love with aviation and its uses, the limitation of ground transportation is very real, and this would offer one self-contained solution.

Today will be a day of evaluation and direction-finding. We're awaiting reports from the folks in Mississippi regarding what we can do to help there. My direction will be influenced accordingly.

Today wasn't the busy day I had hoped it to be, though I did accomplish a few important things. The after-action report is complete except for patient numbers, and those are starting to trickle in from our volunteers. So far I'm up to around 3,600 patient contacts based on about 6 reports. I expect that number to double. I still need numbers from Bogalusa, Covington, Amite, the ambulance teams, the New Orleans folks, Lollie Kemp hospital, the Baton Rouge Red Cross shelter, and Plaquemine's Parish.

Dan and Dick are still in the Biloxi area, but the medical people who were there have gone. We're in a quandary right now, with another storm cooking in the Caribbean, aiming at the gulf. The projected path right now is toward Texas, but that could change at any time, and we could have a second hit on New Orleans. The assets we are currently using in Mississippi are on loan from Livingston Parish, and another storm will necessitate their return.

We have a medical team that we are trying to deploy from Virginia, and hope to bring them in on Friday. Their deployment will be influenced by the storm and its effects.

I've spent the day chomping at the bit, so to speak. I realized that with a doctor, just one, we could be out doing little clinics like we did in Vernon on Saturday. People who are not on anyone's radar screen, overshadowed by the whole New Orleans story, could know that they aren't forgotten. I haven't forgotten, but I feel that my hands are tied.

I may fly to Gulfport tomorrow. I've received permission from the owner of a private grass strip near there to land and keep the plane there. The limiting factor is the POTUS. Thanks to his making sure he's seen, I have to wait until he leaves the area before I can come in and land. His departure is scheduled for 1305 tomorrow afternoon, so it shouldn't be a problem, but one never knows. I also may have to retrieve a generator from the Slidell clinic.

I've learned to appreciate MREs. That would be "Meal, Ready-To-Eat" for the uninitiated. There are a number of Vegetarian selections on the MRE menu, and I have found them all to be very tasty! They're self-heating. Just add water to the chemical packet in the "cooking" bag, put them in the box, and come back in 5 minutes or so to a hot entree. They have a veggie steak patty that, with a little Tabasco (included), is really quite good. And MREs are everywhere down here.

Unfortunately, the British MREs have been deemed "unfit for human consumption" by some pencil-pushers in Washington, so we've very effectively offended our British friends by planning to burn several million that they donated for the cause. Something about not having our nutrition labels on them. I was amused, though, that the British MRE has a target printed on the side of the box. I assume that it is for after the box is emptied.