When disaster strikes in Napa, Police Chaplain Lee Shaw is usually on the scene to bring comfort and support to those who are suffering.

So it isn't any surprise that Shaw and his wife Mary headed south to spend 16 long days doing their part to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The couple left Napa for Louisiana on Sept. 26. Shaw spent his time working with overworked police officers and firefighters, first in Baton Rouge and later in New Orleans.

Mary Shaw was deployed by the American Red Cross to the organization's Louisiana headquarters, where she trained other volunteers.

"Baton Rouge was the command center -- the hub of the relief effort," Lee Shaw said. "It was where all the relief agencies, fire and police were. I lived in a tent city with about 1,500 others who were part of the disaster response."

Shaw said words fail to describe what the embattled law enforcement and firefighters faced.

"They were afraid for their lives because of all the gangs and looters who overran the city after the hurricane," he said. "They were trying to rescue while surviving themselves. Seventy to 80 percent of them lost everything they owned, and in some cases, their loved ones."

Shaw recalls a fire captain who was wiped out by the hurricane. "He was very depressed, distraught and suicidal. I spent almost an entire day with him. He said it wasn't even the hurricane or the meltdown, the most frustrating and depressing part of the rescue was working with the bureaucracy. He had to make life-and-death decisions, and the bureaucrats were always second-guessing his decisions."

The officers had lost their weapons in the storm. "They had nothing to protect themselves from the gangs and looters. They were so afraid. I saw that fear," Shaw said. "One officer I met told me he sleeps with two loaded guns on his pillow. When he goes on patrol, he said he walks with both guns drawn."

Center of the storm

After five days, Lee left Baton Rouge for New Orleans.

"That's when the magnitude of what Hurricane Katrina really hit me. There wasn't a lot of damage in Baton Rouge. But New Orleans, especially a district called the Lower Ninth Ward, where there is so much poverty, really took a hit. It was like nothing you could imagine if you didn't see it for yourself."

Lee said when the levee broke in the Lower Ninth Ward, it pushed a huge metal barge into what was once a residential neighborhood. "It was crazy. Here is this barge sitting on dry land."

Police and firefighters in New Orleans were housed on docked cruise ships on the Mississippi River. Lee was housed on one with an odd name given the circumstances, the Ecstasy.

"I spent my time looking for loners and those who were deeply troubled. One officer couldn't find his wife for a week. They got separated during the rescue. The officer was so depressed, he wouldn't eat. He was very afraid. Fortunately, another police officer who knows him ran across his wife in another city in Louisiana where she had been taken during the evacuation."

Shaw said he heard one troubling story after another. "I met the partner of an officer who took his life. I saw him sitting on a bench and asked him how he was doing. He told me about his partner. (His partner) was walking in front of him and he heard him say, 'Tell my wife I love her.' He turned around to see his partner holding two guns to his head and pull the trigger.

"I met a woman who was walking on the pier looking desperate. I started talking to her and she said she was a combat nurse and had just come home to New Orleans after a year in Iraq, only to find she had lost everything. She was just hopeless. I spent many hours with her, gave her some money to get her by. Over and over I saw the faces of people who had given up all hope," he said.

Lee also encountered a police officer who had been shot in the head by a looter. "The bullet went into the back of his head and came out the front. It blew his ear off," he said. "I talked to him a couple of days ago, and he's getting along. He can walk, but he will need more surgeries."

Those that lost their homes and had not been evacuated found shelter anywhere they could, Shaw said. "I met a man who lived for one month in a Wal-Mart parking lot."

Remembering Yuba City

Meanwhile, Mary Shaw was training the massive number of Red Cross volunteers.

"I felt compelled to volunteer with the Red Cross because of what they did for my grandmother who lost everything in the 1955 flood in Yuba City. I'll never forget what she went through and how much she appreciated the work of the Red Cross," Mary said.

Working as a trainer was not Mary's first choice. "I wanted to work in the shelters. But they really needed trainers because they were training 500 to 700 Red Cross volunteers a day," she said. "And during a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, everyone has to be flexible."

Eventually, Mary was sent to the shelters from the headquarters to train the volunteers.

"What I saw at the shelters was teams of people doing the best they could with very little resources. There was a team sent to a town on the border of Texas. During that time, Hurricane Rita struck. This team was stranded at the shelter with no resources for several days. Everyone ate cinnamon buns for three days -- breakfast, lunch and dinner."

"I saw people helping each other, giving each other the ability to cope in an impossible situation," she said.

When the Shaws returned home after more than two weeks in humid weather and catastrophic conditions, Napa looked better than ever.

"It is heartbreaking to see people suffering. It makes you truly grateful for what you have," Lee said. "A catastrophe can bring out the worst in people such as the looters. But it also can bring out the best in people. We have an entire nation praying for the victims of the hurricane. Millions of dollars have been donated. It's amazing how people will pitch in and help people they don't even know."