I need advice.

I'm thinking of applying for a job that would, in almost every respect, be a vast improvement over the job I have now. It's in the field I want to pursue, it's in my town (as opposed to in another state!), it's more money. There are two catches, however: It's temporary (through Feb.), and it doesn't have benefits.

The part about it being temporary doesn't bother me overmuch. I'm set to quit my current job before the end of the year anyway, and I have no current job leads for after I quit, so taking this job will just extend by a couple of months the time period I have in which to find another job (and, optimistically, there's always the chance that they'll love me so much they'll want to keep me on in some capacity once this position is finished).

The no benefits part, though, worries me. Not that my health plan at the moment is all that great, but being without one entirely is a dire prospect. So I'm looking at COBRA, and it looks like I can get a short-term (under 6 months; this is assuming I'll be able to find another job with benefits in the spring) insurance plan for only $25/month. Can that possibly be right? I know I've heard friends talk about paying as much as $300/month for COBRA. Does anyone here have experience or advice with this plan?

TIA!

Katie, I am not sure if this would work for you, but maybe and for any others who are freelancers, contractors, temp workers, etc...Freelancers Union.

Go Laura and Teppy with the mad letter-writing skills!

Kate, I'd look carefully at that $25/month plan, because I've never heard of insurance that cheap. When I used COBRA back in 1993, I was paying around $100/month, and I'm sure it's only gone up since. My guess is that if it's legit, it has high deductibles and/or is designed for catastrophic care--i.e. would pay your hospital bills if you were in a wreck, but NSM the cost of your allergy meds or birth control pills. All of which might be a risk worth taking for 6 months, if you're generally in good health, but be sure you know what you're getting into.

msbelle, thanks for the link--that could be very useful.

Susan, I will definitely look closely at the plan. It's sometimes hard for me to tell, though, exactly what is offered by a specific insurance plan and what would make the most sense for me to get. At the moment, I'm not taking any prescription medication, and I just got new glasses, so I don't have much need for that sort of maintenance insurance; it's the potential car crash or contraction of West Nile virus that worries me.

Congrats on the letter, Laura!

Yeah, what Susan Said, Kate -- it's probably designed to be catastrophic only, or a really really high deductible. You're young and in good health, so if you're not too risk-aversive it might be the way to go for a couple months.

Also, Kate, aren't you now in school again? They often offer student health insurance, which might be worth looking into.

Speaking of Health Care: Healthcare costs spike again Yikes.

Mom sent me an email from my step-dad this morning. He runs the public transportation system back home. I know there's been a lot of carping on that photo of all the flooded busses, but here's a first-hand account from his friend who runs the RTA in NO that was printed in Passenger Transport.

Step-dad says: "Bill Deville is the General Manager and a good friend of mine. He is now working to blend the RTA into Baton Rouge's system, which has become severely overloaded with the large numbers of evacuees now in Baton Rouge. I am sending this to a lot of you who asked what RTA did when they found out about Katrina. It also shows how difficult it is when the workers doing the evacuating are battling the same problems as the evacuees -"

"The Office of Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security contacted us, wanting us to play a role in evacuating those who couldn't get themselves out. This was Saturday [Aug. 27]. We set up a "war room" on the third floor of our Canal Street facility, with communications, satellite computer access, etc. We had dry food, water, about 100 air mattresses. Over 100 operators volunteered to help out. We also invited their immediate families to join us at the facility: spouses, kids, elderly folks-a total of about 200 people.

The mayor set up about 12 evacuation points in the city where we had our operators and buses going back and forth, to bring those who were there to the Superdome, which they were calling the refuge of last resort. A number of paratransit operators assisted ambulances that were taking sick people to Baton Rouge.

We started immediately preparing and strategizing on Saturday, and began operations Sunday morning [Aug. 28]. We did the bus evacuations all day long, and were quite successful in getting a lot of folks out.

We learned later that the storm was going to be a lot worse than we had anticipated. We had to stop operations because the weather was getting bad-that was around nightfall on Sunday. We told some operators, rather than come back from evacuating people to Baton Rouge, stay there after making their deliveries. Some were able to come back before the curfew in the city.

The storm was getting worse, the wind howling, rain pouring down, and it was pretty bad by early Monday morning [Aug. 29], but the building where we were was still in pretty good shape. The electricity was off, but we were able to operate with backup generators.

When daylight came Monday morning, we could see how the storm was ravaging the city. We still felt OK because, while the street was flooding, the water level was not high enough to affect our building.

Later that day, we saw that the water level had risen substantially, to the first floor of our building at the doorway. The water was high enough that we realized we might have some trouble operating buses. We needed to get a couple of our really huge wrecker trucks so we could go and assess the damages at our other facilities. We were devastated at what we saw. We couldn't even reach the eastern New Orleans facility: I-10 was submerged, too much water even for these big trucks. They told us the water was at least eight feet deep. We had to turn back.

After we got back to the facility, by 9 p.m., we called a meeting. A lot of people were getting eager to leave and go home, and we announced to employees that there was quite a bit of water throughout the city, that they might have to stay there another day or so.

About 2 a.m. Tuesday [Aug. 30], one of the engineers came by and told us that we had to get out because the generators were no longer working; the water had risen past the contact point. We got together about 10 of the executive management group to examine the building, which now had at least four or five feet of water on the first floor. It occurred to us that the Canal Streetcar track area is higher than street level, and maybe we could get the big trucks up there to help us evacuate. We couldn't. The first truck drowned as soon as it got onto Canal Street, buried in water (continued...)

( continues...) probably up to the hood.

We reconvened at 9 a.m. We had been using the air mattresses for sleeping overnight on the third floor. My assistant general manager, Gerald Robichaux, suggested we use the air mattresses to begin evacuating people; by this time we had reports of the levees breaking, sea water levels reaching the windshield of buses. We got everyone on the roof of the building. Immediately a group of people got panicky, saying they couldn't swim, one had emphysema, another had a heart condition. I said, we're not going to force anyone to do anything. I'll stay back with those who can't go.

Our board chair got in touch with the mayor, who contacted the governor. It was hard getting a phone to work.

After awhile, we knew we had to go, couldn't wait any longer. We walked a group of about 150 people down to the first floor, where the air mattresses were floating on the water. The people would step from the stairway onto the air mattresses in groups of three to six people: the people who could not swim, children, the elderly. We had people with wheelchairs on the mattresses. Some employees-mostly guys but also some female police-walked with the mattresses to the front of the building to the streetcar area. A couple of employees were waiting in trucks on higher ground, near the Mississippi River. Once the folks on the mattresses got to the trucks, these employees would drive them through flooded routes and get them to the Crescent City Connection bridge and overpass, the only way out of the city that wasn't destroyed or under water.

The trucks took the evacuees to a transfer station where they met three or four MCI coaches, which began the process of transporting the employees and families to Baton Rouge. By nightfall, we had gotten 150 people out. The rest of us went back to the building-no power, no lights-and held tight overnight.

Next morning, Wednesday [Aug. 31], we got word that the brother of someone in the facility had a flatboat that was still operable but too far away to help us. If someone could swim and wade through the water, we could get the boat back. We thought we might be able to evacuate the rest of us at the facility that way, and indeed we did. We took about 15 people on the boat at a time, making several trips.

The people on the boat did face threats: people shooting, threatening to take the boat, people asking for help along the way.

Eventually, just 15 or 20 people were left sitting near the roof in the parking garage area, and they refused to leave for a number of reasons. They wanted to know what was going to happen when they got to Baton Rouge, etc. I told them the water was contaminated with diesel fuel, oil, sewage, that if anyone fell or got in the water it would burn the skin, and so forth. I let them know the Red Cross was waiting to help us; we were nearly out of water and didn't have power; that the weather was going to clear up and we'd probably have a heat index of 110 degrees before long; nobody could take showers or baths at the facility; we were down to one policeman and a small group of people. If they stayed, I told them, they could be overrun, and it could be dangerous. That got them out at nightfall. I was in the last boat; it was a nightmare.

We evacuated to the Broad Street overpass, near where police were trying to evacuate prisoners. Trucks were coming in through the water to pick us up, being directed by people standing with flashlights to keep the trucks from falling off the road. The trucks were operating in water levels up to the hood, so it was difficult for them to navigate. The trucks carried the people through blocks and blocks of water. Sometimes men had to get out and push through the black water and darkness, with only the flashlights and headlights to help us see. We were trying to be cautious, but we got through there.

The hardest part for me was that I had some heart medicine problems. I was taking blood thinners, and the doctor had told me to avoid trauma.

By this point, we couldn't get through to (continued...)