TIRELESS VOLUNTEERS PROVIDE AID ON THE GO

Southern Baptist volunteers from Tennessee cook about 2,500 meals each day in their tents on the First Baptist Church parking lot. Once the hot food goes into the carrying containers, Red Cross volunteers in red and white vans called Emergency Relief Vehicles speedily take the handoff.

The 10 ERVs that charge into and out of the lot every day come from such towns as Hattiesburg, Miss., and Panama City, Fla., places where hurricanes habitually cause trouble. They're built for getting food to disaster victims and workers quickly. In a pinch, they can serve as ambulances.

Twice a day, at about 9:30 a.m. and again shortly after 3 p.m., ERV 1053 leaves Cape Girardeau and heads down Illinois Route 3 on a 22-mile trip to Olive Branch and environs before winding back around on Route 127 toward Tamms.

Besides its materiel cargo it dispenses something the increasingly isolated people fighting the flood victims seem to need contact with the rest of us.

Aboard 1053 are Morris Pace, who works for the telephone company in Hattiesburg, May Greene reading teacher Marje Engleman, and Morris "Coach" Osburn, a Cape Girardeau retiree who was driving sandwiches to flood victims and relief workers long before the Baptists' kitchen was set up.

What this ERV crew had in mind was lunch beef stew, pinto beans and mixed vegetables with bread for about 100. There were bags of chips and fruit drink for the kids, along with gallon jugs of water, ice and some pears.

First they dropped off some Cambros the hot food containers at the Horseshoe Lake Community Center, where an unexpected 25 National Guardsmen were due for the noon meal. Next they headed on to the Egyptian High School cafeteria, where cooks Dorothy and Melvin Smith had prepared homemade cinnamon rolls and peach cobbler.

The high school is preparing to close down its hot food operation to get ready for the opening of school.

Then began a slow cruise of whole blocks where homes are sandbagged against the rising water. The ERV's honking horn summoned people from their houses and mobile homes.

Pace was the ERV's point man, driving the van and greeting the people who come from their sandbagged houses to receive their hot meal. A tall, amiable man, in three weeks here he has endeared himself to most everyone on his route.

One of them is Edith Johnson, an elderly woman who has remained in the flood zone despite her obvious fear. "When you leave you just can't sleep," she explained. "When you stay here you can see what's going on."

She said she would wade out later in the day to buy groceries.

Water has completely covered the road into the Mel-Graw subdivision where she lives. Someone has driven staves by each side of the roadway to guide those who must drive through anyway.

Here, the flood is fought face-to-face, individuals and families holding tight to keep their pumps running. Some places, the only entrance remaining to the house is a ladder against a sandbag wall. Portable bathrooms are stationed on some blocks because many of the homes' septic systems no longer operate.

One couple has moved out everything but themselves. "We're just staying here to keep the basement pumped out," she said.

One man refused the offer of a hot meal, saying, "Give it to somebody who needs it worse than I do."

A ranch-style house next to Horseshoe Lake is surrounded by a double wall of sandbags. There are more than 3,000 bags along the rear of the house alone.

Engleman is a new Red Cross volunteer making her first run on an ERV. She manned the sliding window on the van's side, taking orders and handing out food.

Through the ERV's window, Engleman sometimes heard whole family histories.

"When you've got something like this bothering you, people just need somebody to talk to," she says.

Dishing the food from the Cambros into Styrofoam serving plates, "Coach" pared the operation down to "How many?" and "Let's go." He is a Cape Girardeau retiree who has had careers as a collegiate basketball coach, and administering federal desegregation and learning programs.

Pace and Osburn have struck up a close, bantering friendship Osburn is facetiously concerned about Pace's driving. They share a first name and an inclination to do something in the face of the flood disaster.

They know where the four or five people who are in wheelchairs live. They know to go to the door of an elderly man who is hard of hearing. They know Mr. Lickem, a terribly friendly dog. They know the family at the end of one road has a 2-week-old infant.

Rip Parker, an elderly man who lives along the route, calls the drawling Pace his rebel. "I've never eaten so good in my life as when you rebels come up to feed me," he says.

Pace took a picture of His Yankee because he was going back to Hattiesburg the next day. "You have to get home back in the situation every now and then," he says.

His 10-year-old grandson is mowing his lawn and taking care of his wife, who is recuperating from an accident.

"I think they had to bale the grass it was so high," he said.

Now empty of food, the van turned back toward Cape Girardeau. Outside, soybean fields that have become lakes whizzed by.

By the end of its first run of the day, 1053 had served 102 meals, given out 72 gallons of water, and filled 80 bags with fruit drinks and chips.

The ERV bounced back into the church parking lot at 3:20 p.m. In minutes it was reloaded with the evening meal for the return trip.