Fresno native Brian Van Anne, director of Genesis Family Center's foster care program, left September 6 to spend two weeks volunteering with the Red Cross, helping to provide mental health services to victims of Hurricane Katrina. He will share his experiences each day with Bee readers.

11 A.M. CENTRAL TIME -- It's crazy here right now. We got up and were in the hotel lobby by 7:30 a.m. We got tired of waiting around so we made our way to the Red Cross center around 9. They had us waiting around there and we got so frustrated that we hopped in a cab and came to the Astrodome to see if we could do something.

The whole dome is on lockdown, nobody is coming in or going out.

Apparently there was a rumor that FEMA was giving away $2,000 vouchers and that didn't happen. Then the Red Cross said something about giving away $200 vouchers and that didn't happen either. But everyone got stirred up and was squabbling in line. There was a report of a fight that broke out, but there wasn't any rioting. There are a ton of people out front trying to get vouchers; either they're not evacuees or they are and they just showed up from other parts of the city for vouchers.

There are about 9,000 people at the Reliant complex -- which includes the Astrodome -- right now. We heard that earlier in the week there were about 27,000. The Noral virus has been going around; we've talked with three people who have either gone to the hospital or gone home sick. It comes on really fast and the Red Cross is stressing cleanliness when you come off the floor of the Astrodome.