The lead up

Faced with dwindling work prospects in the rural Midwest, I began considering my options. The options seemed to be 1) sell my house and move 2) let the sheriff sell my house and move 3) take a temporary job in a place that pays well enough to postpone options one or two. I decided on option three.

I knew a number of people that had gone to the Gulf Coast to help with disaster recovery planning so I started making some calls.

FEMA was a logical place to start. They needed historic preservations and planners immediately, so their website said. "Overnight your resume, " the job announcement said. While I love FedEx and all, I simply emailed my resume.

After a few weeks of quiet, I tracked down the staff person in charge of evaluating resumes. Polite and earnest, she told me she had been working evenings and weekends to get through the flood of applicants. She said FEMA was desperate for more people, their people were overwhelmed in the field. Still, because FEMA was part of the Department of Homeland Security, there were procedures. It would be a month before my resume was entertain into the computer. Once that happened I would be sent a packet of forms. I would need background checks, health checks, security checks, health checks and credit checks. Once I filled the information in I could expect several months to pass.

FEMA encouraged me to hang in there. I decided to pursue other channels.