It was another rather busy weekend of cleaning and meetings.
I slept in until around 7 am on Saturday morning. Karla and I had planned on meeting at the church at 9 am to assist in taking down the Christmas decorations in the auditorium. On my way to the church, I had my REACT two-way radio on and heard a call from one of my REACT team members, asking for assistance at a traffic accident. I was heading towards the church and was entering SE OKC and the accident was at NE 10 & I-35. Since I was only 10 minutes away, I responded to his call for assistance and arrived on the scene to help with traffic control. The left-hand lane was completely blocked by a car that had hit some debris in the roadway, lost control and slammed into the concrete median barriers. Her car was not badly damaged, but it would not start…..fortunately, she was not injured.
Myself and the other REACT member had our emergency lights on and blocked the left-hand lane. We also set up some safety traffic cones to alert motorists to slow down. I think we waited for over 45 minutes before two OHP units and one Oklahoma County Sheriff’s unit arrived on the scene. Right after they all arrived, the wrecker we had called, also arrived. Since everything was covered and I was no longer needed, I cleared off the scene and headed to the church. By the time I got to the church, the decorations were all taken down and the vacuuming had started. Since I was there, I decided it would be a good time to work on the announcements for the power point Sunday morning. So, I spent about an hour working on the power point.
Afterwards, I really had no plans, so I headed home and just relaxed for the afternoon. At around 4 pm, I decided to do a circle around the city, on the interstate system and look for any stranded motorists. Some of our REACT units are now acting as “courtesy patrols” and are now patrolling the interstates during different times of the day or night. During the day, we work by ourselves but after dark, we either have a two-man unit, or we have two units follow each other. It’s way too dangerous to have one person out after dark. So, after driving around for about an hour, I did not see anyone stranded, so I headed home and watched football for the evening.
My big day was Sunday. Other than church, I had a REACT Board meeting and a REACT team meeting I had to attend that afternoon. During the Board meeting, I was elected as Chairman of the Board. It was an honor and it will keep me busy, but I am up to the challenge. After our board meeting, we had our team meeting. I was highly disappointed because we only had one member attend the team meeting. We did have a good team meeting, but I was sure tired afterwards. Attending meetings can be mentally draining.
At around 8 pm Sunday night, I joined a telephone conference with the Board of Directors from REACT International. The phone conference had people on it from all over the United States….and Canada. I joined the Board meeting because I was up for nomination to fill a newly-created staff position, the Public Information Officer. Since I am doing this already for my REACT team, I was asked by one of the REACT International Board members if I would be interested in serving in this capacity with REACT International. It is volunteer, of course and it will require a couple of hours a month, but I believe I can do it. After listening in on the Board meeting for over an hour, the time finally came for the REACT Board to vote on my nomination. I had a few of the Board members ask me questions, but in the end, I was elected to serve as their new PIO. They were still having their meeting at 10 pm, but I was ready to go to bed, so I dropped out of the meeting.
http://www.centralokreact.org/
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