Operation Brother’s Keeper History Brief Updated: September 8, 2005 3pm Tricia B. Madden A Small Group of Dedicated Individuals Making a Big Difference As Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast Monday morning, the nation watched to see the results. As early as Monday afternoon, the news began coverage of the destruction in Baton Rouge, the New Orleans Superdome drama, and the Lake Pontchatrain levee breaks and resulting floods. By Tuesday, the victims were still not evacuated. Most people watched in disbelief, waiting to see news about their rescue. The relief effort, and lack thereof, quickly began to disgust and disturb most observers. By Wednesday, a small group of Atlantans began their own rescue mission. Co-owners of Graduate Medical Consultant Group, Dr. Cecil Bennett and Milo Pickney, a pilot, decided to fly down Pickney’s private plane to Baton Rouge themselves and evacuate whomever they could find. The idea was to act as a flight taxi service, flying medical staff and supplies in, and flying evacuees out. Pickney’s wife, Gail, began to advertise their informal mission on Gail’s company’s website, VacationRentalsForFamilies.COM. They gave out their personal phone numbers if anyone wanted to join them in their efforts. The response was overwhelming, and by Thursday morning they already had a full time volunteer, Sheila Nickel, to organize and head up a call center. Nickel, an IBM Project Manager, was so moved by the stories of Katrina’s victims that she cancelled her upcoming Ireland vacation with her husband to get involved in the relief effort. Taking a vacation and possible temporary leave of absence from work, Nickel is the full time current Atlanta coordinator for this group of volunteers. As directed by Pickney and Bennett, Nickel’s first mission was to acquire a few cell phones to help with the call volume. Unable to get a company to donate cell phones and minutes, she bought the first few phones herself and started to track the barrage of volunteers calling from all over the country. By Friday, they had organized a group of pilots, 10 planes, and medical staff that were scheduled to leave Saturday at 6 AM. At this point they had nearly 20 volunteers involved with this effort and they dubbed themselves “Operation Brothers Keeper.” True to media reports, Brothers Keepers quickly found out that gulf coast relief efforts were disorganized and heavily wrapped in red tape. Baton Rouge refused their flight plans and the planes remained grounded Saturday morning. The volunteers went into overtime to overcome the interagency jurisdiction disputes and problems that halted their rescue effort. Literally working around the clock, Operation Brothers Keepers negotiated with FEMA, The Red Cross, the Department of Defense, and numerous government agencies to eventually obtain clearance. Backed with support from muscle such as the White House Press Secretary and Louisiana’s Governor Kathleen Blanco, Baton Rouge relief agencies were instructed to remove all obstacles for Brothers Keepers flights to get into the disaster zone. The first flight left Atlanta’s Peachtree Dekalb Airport (PDK) on Saturday afternoon piloted by Pickney and accompanied by Dr. Bennett and volunteer Aaron McCullough, who would serve as the Baton Rouge ground coordinator for the first 6 days. The other volunteers were forced to wait until Monday to begin their missions. Within just one week, Brothers Keepers led volunteers in evacuating over 100 refugees as well as bringing supplies and over 20 medical personnel into the Baton Rouge area. The original plan was to run flights through Labor Day and then volunteers could return to their jobs on Tuesday September 6th. As the generosity and enthusiasm of pilots and volunteers has grown, the flights continue. There are currently 15 or more full time (as in 24 hours a day) volunteers at the Brothers Keepers makeshift call center, currently located in the basement of the First Baptist Church of Doraville just minutes away from PDK airport. The volunteers are full of stories about how many people are so willing to give and support the victims of Katrina. There are private pilots that are donating their planes, time, and thousands of dollars in fuel costs as well as to a man in Baton Rouge who is shuttling people from shelters to the airport in the back of his pickup truck. There are pilots housing evacuees in their homes or putting them up in hotels. The evacuees range from whole families with children to a woman in a wheelchair who spent her 95th birthday flying with Brothers Keepers out of the disaster zone. Most of them are traveling to meet extended families in Georgia, but have gotten a “free ride” to as far as SanFrancisco, New York, Minnesota, Ohio, and Boston. As Sheila Nickel describes their “fly by the seat of their pants” operation, “its truly amazing that it actually worked. We got people out.”