Just a quick update...we are working 12-13 hour days and are pretty tired at the end of the day, so this will be a short email. We have a day off on Friday and if we can get a little ways out of town, we may be able to take some pictures to send with the next update. Most people thing that Hurricane Irene is over and can't figure out while Red Cross is still here. I don't know how much press that the Northeast weather area is getting out West, but it's about the only thing here. Before the hurricane arrived here, New York & Vermont were besieged by storms. The ground was saturated and so when Hurricane Irene came in with it's high winds and heavy rain, the water had no place to go. The area that we are in around Albany , NY, is quite mountainous.(At least that's what I've heard. We've only seen the airport, our motel and the 2 miles to our work site at Red Cross Headquarters.) Many of the roads in the mountain areas are not paved. When Irene hit, trees fell and the rain turned the roads to mud and things slid down the mountain. Many people that live up on the mountains were cut off. One of the local volunteers told me about a family - father, mother and 2 small children - who walked into the closest little town. It took them 4 days, without food or water, to make the journey. There was no road left so they had to make their way over fallen trees and around mudslides. When they arrived in town, it was mostly destroyed, too. The Red Cross vehicles were at one of the few buildings that was still standing, handing out hot meals and setting up cots for the people to sleep in. They told officials that there were others still up on the mountain. Since the hurricane we have had severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, flash floods and more rain is being forecast for the next 5 days. Shelters and feeding stations that were closed are being reopened and people that had returned to their homes to start cleaning up are being told to evacuate again. Several towns have been completely destroyed. At least 5 of the beautiful old covered bridges are gone now, too. Creeks that were once something that you could take your grand kids wading in are now raging rivers that have flooded everything around them and there is no sign that the waters will recede anytime soon. There are hundreds of people here with Red Cross from all over our country. All of us working towards the same goal: to make sure that the people who have been affected by this disaster have food to eat, a safe place to sleep, clothes and basic necessities and someone to listen. It's humbling to see how much these small things mean to someone who has lost everything. You'd think we had given them the world.