September 04, 2005 

It was announced that Portland will be taking in 1,000 hurricane survivors, offering them shelter, food, etc, for up to 6 months, which was surprising news. Sending these people to Portland will give a whole new meaning to displaced hurricane survivors, seeing as Oregon is one of the furthest points on the map from states like Louisiana.

We're very nice up here, though, so maybe that will help. Then again, it could scare the hurricane survivors. People from out of town often say Portlanders are so nice that it's actually weird and, in keeping with that, we've been told not to overfriendly the hurricane survivors. Being helpful and nice is fine, but we've been told that excessively hugging and kissing them or offering internal organs might freak them out. The hurricane was bad enough, they don't need tons of uber liberal tree hugging hippies beating down their door with offers of spleens and bong hits.

I'm curious to see what this will be like, since a shelter that will house 500 hurricane survivors is right in our neighborhood. Within a few days, 500 people will move into one building (old high school) in our neighborhood. That's quite a population increase, but it's a good thing. I've been so depressed by the hurricane disaster and being so far removed, not being able to offer hands on help, makes it worse. But now we'll be welcoming survivors to our area, and it's a relief to finally be able to help.

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