Your Red Cross Update

by Kathleen Maclay, volunteer contributor, American Red Cross

As Red Cross volunteers were dispatched Monday, Oct. 5^th in response to torrential rains and flooding on the East Coast, Red Crossers assigned to the West Coast after the Northern California Valley Fire made a special delivery of supplies for a hard-hit Cobb Mountain community.

Leaders of the Mountain Lion’s Club in Cobb, located on state Highway 175, asked for specific items that they said residents needed after their community was finally reopened after the lifting of mandatory evacuation orders that came as the fire roared toward Cobb nearly a month ago.

A Red Cross crew working out of nearby Middletown worked to unload sleeping bags, ice chests, blankets, shovels, camp chairs, tents, charcoal, cots, pallets of ready-to-eat meals, and more than 300 sifters specially made by Redwood Empire Council Boy Scouts of America of Sonoma and Mendocino counties.

Rose Geck, a 31-year resident of Cobb and a Lion’s Club volunteer who helped direct the unloading of supplies, said the community is incredibly grateful for the emergency and recovery response it has witnessed.

“The landscape here will be changed for many, many years,” she said.  “It will take a long time for the Old Cobb to come back.  It will actually be the New Cobb.  There’s a lot of hope.”