Some South Coast residents know Matt Hall. He's a co-owner of the Port Orford News. He lived in Port Orford for two and half years, serving as the weekly paper's editor. He left in August 2004, and now works for a food company, North Slope Catering LLC, that caters to firefighters throughout the Northwest during the summer months. But still, the 48-year-old is a journalist.

Last Wednesday, Hall and his catering crew members in Pendleton were called to a bigger duty. Hall will be updating The World's readers over the next few weeks on his participation in the efforts to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Thursday, Sept. 1

We had just finished the last fire when this situation started to unfold. Yesterday before 7 a.m. our supervisor called us out. He had been contacted by FEMA. At 1 p.m., we climbed into our vans and our three trucks which pull mobile kitchens, and we hit the road for Fort Smith, Ark.

We rolled through way stations. We put on our blinkers.

We stopped at a truck stop at Ontario. Other truckers gathered around offered us their best wishes and blessings. For a normal drive, it would take 11 days in 14-hour days. We have five days to arrive.

Friday, Sept. 2

We are pulling out again immediately this morning. We have crew members tossed into a 15-person van like little puppies in a pile.

We do an excellent job. We feed people. And the boss says -- and he means it -- that nobody gets turned away from our kitchen hungry. Nobody. No matter what time.

We read newspapers when we can. We listen to TV reports. We realize this is a totally different thing than we've ever been on before.

We don't know what to expect. We're apprehensive and we want to help. We hear the cries of the people there and our hearts go out them.

Sunday, Sept. 4

When I last reported, we were in Salt Lake City. Since then, we have traveled through Utah, Wyoming and into Colorado. After a long day's drive yesterday, we are in Sand Springs, Okla., a small suburb just north of Tulsa, Okla. It's muggy and humid, overcast and hinting of rain.

We expect to get into Fort Smith today.

While at two truck stops in Kansas, we ran across other mobile catering and shower units. Three times, we have passed long convoys of National Guard military police and support convoys all heading in the same direction.

Last night, we found ourselves paying our way through turnpikes and toll gates, for every truck and vehicle with us. One tollgate operator in Oklahoma looked at us and said, "Go ahead." He was the only one. The Oklahoma State Police said we could pass through as quickly as possible, but this didn't do us any good. At the last toll gate, the operator went vehicle to vehicle writing down license plate numbers.

Sometimes bureaucracy is a little top heavy.

We arrived in Sand Springs at 1 a.m., were asleep around 2 and got up at 6 this morning. Our crew really is a diverse gathering of people from Seattle, California, New York and Texas, with more coming. Spirits are high. We've been watching the news to try to catch up on what's going on.

This morning, we will pull up to a Sam's Club and load as much food and ice as we can cram into the trucks and trailers.

Our plans remain tentative and could change at any time. Our initial task will be to feed support groups -- the people taking care of the situation.

I would describe the mood of our group as more akin to a horse at the starting gate. We know what we are doing. Once we hit a site, we don't require any direction. We go to work.

The hearts of the people around me are pretty much in that same vein. Since we just happened to be in the right place with the right people and the right equipment, we feel were lucky were able to help out.

10:17 p.m. update

It's 10:17 p.m. Central time Sunday. We arrived in Fort Smith around 3:30 p.m. and entered a barbed wire cyclone fence security area with 28 other trucks with catering units, shower facilities. Our two supervisors went to a meeting. It was unorganized. No one was sure who there or how to allocate teams. Some teams dispatched.

I want to tell you about one of our team members, Mike Shelton. He's a big guy with round shoulders -- a real nice guy who goes out of his way to help you and help others. He's in charge of sack lunch and inventory. That means he can be preparing as many as 1,000 sack lunches a day.

On the day we were ready to leave Pendleton, he got word best friend in Seattle was very ill. Given choice to see his friend in his last days, Mike thought real hard, took a long walk, bit his lip and came with us. He got word this afternoon his friend died. Early on, Mike was the one who stated he came down here as a volunteer. Mike is above and beyond. There are a whole lot of people down here working hard to fight the bureaucracy, mismanagement and red tape. Tomorrow morning, we'll find out more.

Monday, Sept. 5

The call came for us at 8:30 a.m. Central time. We're being sent to Baton Rouge, La. It's taken us a couple hours to get ready, but we'll be on the road soon.

Today

We arrived St. Gabriel, La., just south of Baton Rouge at about 1 a.m. Central time. We had an armed police escort from Arkansas. It's now about 10 a.m.

Today, we set up tents and get our operation into gear. We are at the town hall. It is a controlled situation with a lot of law enforcement.

Here's the twist.

We're at a morgue. It's a warehouse the size of two or three football fields. One-third of it has been closed off with a lot of black plastic and duct tape. There are teams of doctors, pathologists and morticians. They are set up to receive thousands of bodies. Dna testing will happen. Remains wil be identified. Data will be collected and families and freinds will be notified. In addition to the victims of Katrina, the remains of those who have been disinterred with the flooding also will be handled. As time permits, they will be re-interred and laid to rest.

Doctors, clerks and orderlies are dressed in fatigues, T-shirts and scrubs living in tents, dormatories and everywhere else. The vast majority of these people are volunteers who have spent days setting up this operation.

They are in waiting mode for the remainder of the water to recede and the bodies to arrive. Their mood is upbeat. They're friendly and they are glad to see us. They've been living on beans and rice for the past few days.

We came in at night so it was hard to see anything. I've been told the population of Baton Rouge has doubled in the past week, as victims of Katrina have been brought in.