Truckers Near End of Mercy Mission : Volunteers: Big rigs from Palmdale rumble through the Deep South with relief supplies for Florida.

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 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. After weathering the storm themselves, the pair left town on a cross-country trucking run to Southern California, their parting view of Florida 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 and 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.

“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, 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, Daryl Godwin, president of Draker Air Support, a Los Angeles trucking company, came to the rescue. Godwin 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 later 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,” said Brittain. “Without trucks, we can’t move, period.”

The outpouring of support by truckers--a usually laconic and unregimented breed--has been overwhelming, from the mom-and-pop driving couples and lone wolf independents to major freight corporations like 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.

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.

“Most truckers have been patient. Some have not, but they’re not the norm,” Anderson said.

More than 1,000 trucks from around the nation have streamed into Southern Florida.

By Thursday night, Fancy Pants and The Doorman are rolling through Alabama, saying they feel blessed they have a chance to help their neighbors.

“They’ll never know where this stuff came from, or who brought it,” said Clarice Givens as she wheeled the ebony-black Freightliner toward the Gulf, one hand on the wheel, the other on the CB radio mike.

“But they’ll know somebody cares. And that means a lot.”