Monday, January 02, 2006

Got Chug?

It's been busy-busy-busy out here...

We've had migrants 4 nights in a row now- 15 on the 30th, 13 on the 31st, 22 on the 1st, and 12 this morning.
Our goodwill is wearing a little thin now, along with a lot of other things.
We're almost out of supplies of spare clothes, extra food, etc that we need to deal with the migrants. We've been scavenging the leftovers from Sunny Days' and Yankee Freedom's lunch buffet to take to the migrants so they have at least a little something to eat...
Today's group arrived at sunup this morning, but the Coast Guard won't be able to get them until tomorrow AM...
There will probably be a new group on shore tomorrow anyway, so it's just as well...

It's getting so bad that when we hear the radio in the early morning hours we already know what the content of the message will be...
This morning's radio conversation was indicative of our situation:

Just after dawn this morning we heard,
"200, 200, this is Loggerhead."
The volunteers on Loggerhead Key were calling in...
"How many?" was Willy's only reply, the resignation in his voice came through almost tangibly on the radio. He already knew what they were calling in for...
"200, 200... We have 12, 10 men, 2 women. Came in on a chug on the southeast shore."
Long pause.
"Loggerhead...{heavy sigh} Yeah- we'll be over shortly."

The machine was set in motion; Calls would be made to the Coast Guard, food and medical supplies would be secured and transported to Loggerhead; the migrants would be searched and pre-processed for the trip to Key West and from there to Krome.

Just another day in paradise.
62 migrants in 4 days...
Do the math.


TBG Out.

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