Hurricane Relief Trucks Near Florida : Disaster: After three nights and two days on the road, the Palmdale group hurtles wearily through the Bayou country.

Fancy Pants and The Doorman are hurtling through the Bayou darkness on nothing more than a catnap and coffee, trying to get their rig home to Miami by noon today.

It’s Thursday evening, and it has been three long nights and two days without a change of clothes and more than a few hours sleep for the husband-and-wife truck driving team. But it’s not just the thought of a hot meal and a cool bed that keeps them running. It’s their precious cargo--20 tons of food, clothing and toys from Palmdale for the South Florida victims of Hurricane Andrew.

More than 1,000 truckers have answered the call for help in the hurricane’s aftermath, forming what Florida officials say is the backbone of the relief and rebuilding effort. But the odyssey of Fancy Pants and The Doorman--the citizen’s band radio “handles” for Henry Givens and his wife, Clarice--is among the longest and most personal of them all.

Andrew damaged and flooded the Givenses’ apartment complex in Miami and tore the roof off the offices of their trucking company, MCI Express, in nearby Medley, Fla. Friends living nearby lost everything, including their homes.

After weathering the storm themselves, the pair left town on a cross-country trucking run to Southern California, their parting view of Florida registering scenes of devastation they describe as unimaginable.

Now, they’re heading home again as fast as their 18-wheeler and the highway patrols of eight states can tolerate, on a mercy mission as part of a three-truck convoy that left Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale on Tuesday evening.

They left on a moment’s notice, and they haven’t stopped since. Neither have Red Man, Temptation and Sensation, the CB names for the drivers of the other two trucks in the convoy--Mike Wyman of Calhoun, Ga., and another married driving team, James and Frieda Goins of Morristown, Tenn.

“We know how much this cargo is needed around Miami,” said Henry Givens, who turns 55 today. “If you haven’t seen it with your own eyes, you’d have no idea what it’s like.”

“It’s total chaos down there--devastation,” said Clarice Givens, 48, known to fellow truckers for 10 years as “Fancy Pants.”

“It’s a good feeling knowing we’re doing something to help somebody.”

As they rumble along Interstate 10 with their toy poodle, Smokey, the pair chuckle at the twist of fate that sent them on their trip. They were brought in by chance to help the Miami relief effort begun by Federal Aviation Administration workers in Palmdale and aided by Air Force personnel and employees at Plant 42 there.

When the FAA and Air Force organizers found they could not get a military plane to airlift the 65 tons of food and supplies they had gathered, it was a trucking executive who came to the rescue. Daryl Godwin, president of Draker Air Support, a Los Angeles trucking company, had tried to get truckers to donate their services, but the volunteers he lined up backed out at 3 a.m. Tuesday, he said. So in a matter of hours Tuesday morning, he rounded up five drivers with three trucks who happened to be in the area.

Without truckers like the Givenses, one of the largest and most complex relief efforts in the nation’s history would never have gotten anywhere, Florida officials said Thursday.

“They are our lifeline, and you better believe that,” said Chuck Brittain, transportation manager for the Florida Relief Center, run by state and local officials and relief agencies.

“They move the stuff in here, and they move it to the people who need it,” Brittain said. “Without trucks, we can’t move, period.”

The outpouring of support by truckers--a usually laconic and unregimented bunch--has been overwhelming, from the mom-and-pop driving couples and lone-wolf independents to major freight corporations such as Consolidated Freightways and the Mayflower and Allied moving companies, Brittain and other relief officials said.

In some cases, the response has been too overwhelming. So many trucks have reached Florida--more than 1,000 at last count--that state officials are trying to route them all through the Florida Relief Center, a coordinating office set up in West Palm Beach. The center oversees the unpacking of incoming trucks, and puts together shipments of goods for local trucks to deliver to meet the needs of specific areas.

Those running the center want to cut down on the chaos and traffic jams caused by so many good Samaritan truckers rumbling around South Florida in search of hurricane victims. Some drivers ended up dropping their cargoes by the side of the road or anywhere else they could so they could return to paying work, although relief center spokesman Rob Anderson said such instances were rare.

“In a disaster like this, there are going to be delays,” Anderson said. “Most truckers have been patient, some have not--but they’re not the norm.”

In all, more than 1,000 trucks from around the nation have streamed into South Florida, with 70 more or so coming each day. One 20-truck convoy came from Iowa. Another line of 25 18-wheelers started in Pennsylvania last week and picked up trucks in Virginia, the Carolinas and Tennessee on their way south.

According to Brittain and other relief coordinators, the convoy from Palmdale will probably have come the farthest--no news for the drivers. They remain in good humor, however. And as they take turns sleeping in the cab and driving across the Deep South, the Givenses look for fellow drivers also bringing supplies to the hurricane victims.

Outside Baton Rouge, they met up with Shack Rat--he wouldn’t give anything but his handle--who was hauling a house trailer as part of an effort to bring shelter for homeless trailer park residents.

At each truck stop, they get a hearty show of support from road-weary truckers who stop for a smoke and a bottomless dose of caffeine at all hours of the day and night.

“Truckers got a bad name, but when it comes down to it, they’re there for folks,” said J.L. Pettyjohn, sitting with his co-driver wife at the Comanche Springs Cafe in Fort Stockton, Tex.

“They’re overworked, underpaid, and tired all the time. But in a bind, they’ll help. Good luck to ya.”

As they pass through Grosse Tete, a tiny town in the Louisiana Bayou country that was also hit by Andrew’s winds and rain, truck stop waitress Stephanie Brand tells the Givenses that drivers like them are a godsend.

“We’ve had a lot of drivers hauling stuff from here to Miami, and some that came through here too,” said Brand, whose house was nearly leveled by the storm. Truckers from Food Lion Inc., a North Carolina-based grocery chain, delivered a full cargo of ice and non-perishable food, keeping her children fed for a week, she said.

By Thursday night, Fancy Pants and The Doorman have chewed up most of the 2,700 miles they need to go along Interstate 10. As their ebony-black Freightliner pushes through the dark in Alabama, Givens and his wife of 10 years have pushed themselves to the limit as well. Road hypnosis--the danger of fixating on highway stripes and tail lights and losing alertness--becomes a problem as miles fade into one another with numbing sameness. It’s the same with Wyman, whose truck is still close by. The Goinses went their own way the second day out from Palmdale, and the drivers plan to rendezvous at Tamiami Airport near Miami today.

But there is no mention of stopping. The Givenses say they feel blessed to be able to help in their own way.

“What these people are facing now is rebuilding their lives, their homes--this may replace some of what they lost, or will surely make them feel better,” Clarice Givens says. “The little teddy bears might make a world of difference to a child, or a blanket to brighten up their lives. It gives them hope that they haven’t lost everything.”