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God bless first responders.

The USNS Comfort sits docked Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005, in Baltimore. The hospital ship is preparing to leave Baltimore and sail south to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Baltimore-based ship is part of the Navy's Military Sealift The Comfort is expected to be part of what many say is the largest domestic disaster relief effort in years. The military is mainly providing search and rescue, medical help and supplies to the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.Command. (AP Photo/Gail Burton)

Members of the MO/TN Incident Response Teams Urban Search and Rescue teams and local officials help evacuate people trapped in their flooded homes by Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans, Louisiana, August 30, 2005. Floodwaters engulfed much of New Orleans on Tuesday as officials feared a steep death toll and planned to evacuate thousands remaining in shelters after the historic city's defenses were breached by Hurricane Katrina. (Vincent Laforet/Pool/Reuters)

NSTAR trucks leave for Birmingham, Ala., from NSTAR facility in Westwood, Mass., Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005. NSTAR crews from Massachusetts area are scheduled to arrive in Birmingham on Friday to help restore power, re-build electric infrastructure, and provide other aid in areas hit hardest by the hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki)

Rescue personnel help a woman out of a boat after she was rescued from floodwaters in New Orleans, Louisiana. Floodwaters continued to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina broke two levees separating the city from Lake Pontchartrain(AFP/James Nielsen)

Friends and neighbors help Evelyn Turner, second from right, load the body of her common-law husband, Xavier Bowie, onto a flatbed truck after he died in New Orleans, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Xavier and Turner had decided to ride out Hurricane Katrina when they could not find away to leave the city. Xavier, who had lung cancer, died when he ran out of oxygen Tuesday afternoon. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Gulfport Miss. Police Officer Terrence Gray, right, helps evacuate Lovie Mae Allen and group of children from their flooded homes after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast Monday, Aug. 29, 2005 in Gulfport, Miss. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Texas to Louisiana, which has a hospital and six helicopters on board to conduct emergency medical evacuations. The US military has joined the massive effort to help the devastated New Orleans region in the wake of ferocious Hurricane Katrina, dispatching ships, helicopters, engineers and other specialists to help survivors, the Northern Command (NorthCom) said.(AFP/HO-US Navy/File)

Minnesotans heading south to help Katrina's victims

Red Cross Volunteer Hildred Dungan was on her way to the State Fair this morning, when she got the call. Her schedule was changing courtesy of hurricane Katrina.

"I think we're going to be doing mass care, going out and feeding people that have no place to eat, because their homes have been ruined or damaged or something," said Dungan.

Hildred will be co-piloting the ERV, the Minneapolis Red Cross emergency response vehicle. She'll be traveling with Carol Cantwell, a veteran of many hurricanes.

"This one might be the worse one," said Cantwell.

As the volunteers got the ERV ready for a trip to a staging area in Alabama, Carol had some advice for Hildred, a hurricane rookie.

"Probably patience is the biggest thing. Well you just don't organize something like this in five minutes. Sometimes we get to a place and have to wait awhile to know where we're going and so forth," said Cantwell.

While the world watches images of the monster storm as it swirls across the Mississippi Delta and New Orleans, a North Memorial paramedic feels lucky that he escaped Katrina's wrath.

"I said I'm a paramedic and I'm driving north. Who wants to go," said Dave Long who was in New Orleans for an EMS convention. He found flying out was impossible, so he grabbed one of the last rental cars and six strangers and headed out.

"It was bumper-to-bumper, only about zero to five miles an hour, it took us five hours to get to Baton Rouge to drop-off our first person, which is normally only about an hour and a half drive.

After dropping off one passenger in Baton Rouge, Dave spent the rest of the day making it to Shreveport, where he caught a plane home Monday morning.

"The hard part was trying to find a bathroom. Every place seemed to be closed," said Long

So while some are relieved to escape disaster, others are hitting the road and heading right for it.

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