Here I am sitting in a Starbucks not far from LSU ready to share with you the first extraordinary day of my mission to help some of the dislocated people of New Orleans. I wish I could tell you I was doing this from a shelter, but unfortunately Internet connectivity has not been a priority for the disaster relief groups - they're more focused on food, water, and beds. So please just grit your teeth as I write from this bastion of banality, iced chai latte in hand.

I flew from LAX to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, arriving at 1PM on Saturday, September 3rd with no contacts in Louisiana. All I knew was that I would get my rental car, buy as many food and non-food supplies as I could fit into the car, and head towards Baton Rouge, stopping at small shelters along the way to offer whatever I had. Of course, Dollar Rental Car managed to screw up my reservation, forcing me to scramble to find another car. Two hours later, after being told by just about every other car rental company at DFW that they were out of everything but SUVs, the lovely folks manning the National counter came through. Thank you National Rental Car.

From the airport, I drove five miles to the nearest big box store. I don't know if any of you have ever seen $1,500 worth of groceries and dry goods at one time (I certainly hadn't), but it's a heck of a lot. In fact, it took me almost another two hours and five huge shopping carts to collect everything.

Here is what $1,500 bought: Pens, Pads, Peroxide, 96 rolls of Toilet Paper, dozens of men's and women's underwear, t-shirts, and socks, 28 tubes of toothpaste, a gross of AA, AAA, and C batteries, 72 bars of soap, 400 plastic cups, 48 rolls of paper towels, 320 diapers, 5 huge boxes of dried milk, 528 Nutragrain bars, 144 granola bars, 248 fruit cups, 20 huge bags of raisins, 80 packs of gum (for adults who hadn't been able to brush their teeth for days), 288 juice packets, 40 lbs of apples, 120 bananas, 200 bottles of water, five huge containers of Ice Tea mix, and other sundry odds and ends. Phew.

At 5:30pm, I set off. Unfortunately, however, all of the Louisiana maps in Dallas were sold out. But I knew how to get to Shreveport, just over the border. From there I figured I'd just wing it, hoping that the events depicted in the movie "Deliverance" were truly fiction. My goal was to get rid of all of the supplies by the time I reached Baton Rouge, the staging area for most of the state's disaster relief efforts, where I would join up with one of the relief agencies.

That takes me to the name of this blog, "Coldwater Comments." It refers to two themes. First, and obviously, the storm and the flood spared no one in their path. But more importantly, it refers to the first shelter I visited, a place of love and assistance, with no expectations: The Coldwater Baptist Church in little Natchitoches (pronounced Nakadoshe), Louisiana.

I found Coldwater Baptist by asking a clerk at the BP station just off the highway if there were any shelters in town. To give you a sense of the scope of the refugee crisis, Natchitoches is nearly 200 miles from Baton Rouge and 270 from New Orleans, but still had at least three shelters operating. I explained that I wanted to help someplace that could really use the supplies I had bought, which meant to me a non-Red Cross shelter.

The clerk directed me to a church about three miles away, but while driving there, I came upon Coldwater and it's sign, "Evacuees Welcome." I had to jam on the brakes to make it into the parking lot, causing huge bags of paper towels to bounce off of my head and ricochet around the car. At first, the pastor, whose name turned out to be Jerry Ford, thought I was either nuts or an evacuee.

It took a few minutes for me to explain why I was there. Jerry told me that the church had just set the shelter up that day and that until a few hours before, it had been empty. Then all of a sudden, a bus carrying 29 people pulled up to their door. Now they were caring for almost 40, most of whom had no cars and had lost everything. Although they had help from their friends and congregation, they were very short on supplies. Now you have to realize that unlike Red Cross run shelters, these little church shelters get no help from outsiders. So it was a bit of a shock for them when they saw what I had in the car. Even though I am of Jewish heritage and not a religious man, I have to say that Pastor Jerry and his wife's blessings practically had me crying.

Helped by the Pastor, his wife, and his son Shayne and daughter-in-law Melannie, we brought about 25% of the supplies in my car into the church. It was enough to put a few days worth of food in the bellies of those for whom they were caring. Oh, I left one thing off of the list of supplies I had purchased -- Charms Blow Pops, 200 of them. Now I don't know much about relief work, having never participated in an evacuation before, but one thing I do know is that there are few things in this world that put a bigger smile on the face of a little child than a Blow Pop. There were about 20 children and teenagers in the shelter, and every one of them got their pick of cherry, strawberry, watermelon, or green apple. I have been taking photographs. When I get back to LA, I'll show you little KK, who has one of the greatest smiles of all time, and Karton and his Grandma Connie.

Once a little bit of joy had been spread with Blow Pops, which, by the way, most of the adults also took, I had the chance to sit down and talk with Pastor Jerry and his family. To them, it was only natural to take in anyone who needed help -- no questions asked. I asked Pastor Jerry how long he expected to keep the church open as a shelter. He said, "As long as it takes." I also spoke with several of the people staying in the shelter, most of whom had come from sections of New Orleans that had been completely inundated, including the Ninth ward, one of the city's poorest, and St. Bernard parish. A man from St. Bernard told me that he had been trapped in the city and only made his way out by wading through chest deep water to the levee, where he was able to get a boat. On the way, he had to push away floating bodies.

Pastor Jerry was so generous that he invited me to stay the night and share everything they had. But I did not feel it would be right for me to take a space that could be better occupied by someone from New Orleans. I decided to look for a motel room, which turned out not to be a very good move. I stopped in the local Hampton Inn. They had no rooms, but night manager Celina Torres, just back from a stint at a hotel in Disney world, treated me to free Internet access and hot chocolate. There I also met Robert Mullen Jr and his son Roderick, who had played on both of the Green Bay Packers 1990s Superbowl teams. He insisted I try on his ring and that we take a photograph. You'll see that one too. Robert had come from Baton Rouge and Rod had come from Dallas to provide for family members from New Orleans. After they finished, they figured they might as well have some fun and stayed in town to enjoy a restaurant by the riverfront. By the way, Robert says that Baby Back Ribs are for sissies and can be made in a microwave. He also says that LSU would have kicked USC's butt two years ago. But Rod says his dad is just a bandwagon jumper. On the plus side, he is a Yankees fan.

In the end, after unsurprisingly finding out that every motel room from Shreveport to Baton Rouge was sold out, I pulled back behind the BP station and fell asleep . . . for 45 minutes, before the area's obnoxious flood lights drove me back onto the highway for another 50 miles. Just before Alexandria, I pulled off the road again and found a dark spot behind another service station. It seemed as good a place as any for a few hours sleep, which is what I got.

Tomorrow - Day 2
Towards Baton Rouge.