Communications specialist Sarah Bott worked disaster relief four years ago in New York following 9/11, but she said even that experience pales in comparison to the frantic pace and scope of the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort.

"This is mind-boggling; it's huge," Bott said in a telephone interview from Baton Rouge, La., where she has been assigned to the Emergency Operations Center since her arrival Sunday. "There are career disaster-response people here who worked the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 who say they've never seen anything like it.

"I've been working exclusively inside (the operations center) with about 1,500 people and everyone is working at a feverish pace to get resources out. By resources, I mean finding out if people need a place to stay, if they need a cell phone, do they need care for a person or animal. What we're doing is coordinating information at the emergency center."

The geographic scope of the destruction caused by Katrina, and the fact that so many people have been displaced is a logistical nightmare that is being overcome by the sheer effort of relief workers, said Bott.

"I think what TV doesn't show you is what's going on behind the scenes," Bott said. "What you're not seeing is government and nongovernment people feeling the urgency to get it done. I've never met so many people coming (together) to help fellow Americans. We're all working 14 hours or more a day. I'm deployed here for two weeks but I'm hoping to stay longer."

Bott said the windows of the emergency center, which is in an old four-story Dillard's warehouse, have been boarded up since Monday because of snipers shooting at the building.

"In addition to everything else, there's the frustration of why things are taking so long and the danger of gunfire," Bott said. "We can't send people out unescorted because of the snipers. I don't know why anyone would be shooting."

Despite the risk, the soon-to-be 43-year-old Bott said, "I'm lucky to be here because we're all Americans."

The youngest of seven children, Bott attended Seabury Hall and the University of Hawai'i. Volunteerism runs deep in her family.

"My kids are all into pulling for the community," said Emily Bott of Maui, Sarah's mom. Sarah's brother, Brian, is a civilian contractor working in Iraq, while one of her sisters, Kathy Platt, is a retired paramedic who assisted in the Aloha Airlines Flight 243 accident in April 1988.

In an electronic message to her mother, Sarah Bott said the emergency center is "full of everyone from Army Corps of Engineers to military to FEMA to State Department, all kinds of law enforcement — and on and on."

"It's like a small city of people, all jamming really fast, working 12-hour days and trying to get stuff out to the field to the responders," Bott wrote. "Everyone is working very hard. It's quite humbling. And, of course, everyone is aware of getting slammed by the public and media but at this point, no one has time to actually read the news. I have no idea what's going on out there."

She's staying in a women's dorm with cots, showers and laundry facilities. Her work schedule is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

She's working with some interesting people but there's no time to talk to them, Bott told The Advertiser. "I saw one guy wearing a Wahiawa Fire Department T-shirt but didn't have time to talk," Bott said.