California Storms Response: Stories of the Helpers
By Alex Keilty/American Red Cross
Hundreds of American Red Cross disaster workers are in California, helping people impacted by this two-week stretch of back-to-back severe weather.
The relentless storms have caused flooding, landslides, power outages, severe damage to roadways and numerous evacuations from one end of the state to the other. Almost 470 trained Red Cross disaster workers are helping people in California. Here are some of their stories.
“We enjoy having different scenery from our retired life,” says Lillian, who is serving meals with her husband at the Red Cross shelter in San José that was opened in response to flooding in the area.
“We don’t like sitting around,” says Jeff, and so they volunteer together here and also deliver blood donations to hospitals three days per week for the Red Cross.
“Lots of listening.”
That is what Gale, a retired Nurse, says is a big part of her day as an American Red Cross disaster health services volunteer in San José.
“I am helping people by listening, or helping them get lost medications, helping them get a cane or a walker,” says Gale.
“They want to know that somebody is here to support them.”
Gail Carli, San Mateo Volunteer
“This is my first rodeo,” says American Red Cross volunteer Fernando. It’s his first time volunteering at a shelter set up in response to flooding in San José.
“I am impressed by how many people are willing to volunteer from other states, to come out from their homes and help us in California,” he says.
Fernando is part of a team of volunteers from across America who are providing beds and meals to people impacted by flooding.
“When I go home I lock myself in the house to decompress and think about what I have been through,” Anthony says, of how he deals with the hardest parts of volunteering in disaster areas.
Anthony has experienced the emotional ups and downs of being an American Red Cross volunteer numerous times, helping in shelters and assessing damage to people’s homes after disasters.
Anthony flew into San José this week from West Virginia to help at a shelter at Seven Trees Community Center for people who have been affected by flooding.
But it’s not all tough times as a volunteer. The best parts include travel to new places, sightseeing when off duty and visiting friends in other cities, according to Anthony.
“I jam in some fun every time,” he says.
After Lisa finishes her shift as a Disaster Health Services volunteer for the American Red Cross, she will catch a few good hours of sleep and then wake up at 4:30 am to get to her day job as a Registered Nurse in a hospital caring for children after surgery.
How does she do it all?
“I just figure out how to juggle it because it’s important to me,” she says. “These people are in an incredibly challenging situation,” she says about the residents seeking refuge from flooding across California.
The Red Cross relies on people like Lillian, Jeff, Gail, Fernado, Anthony and hundreds more volunteers who offer shelter and compassion to people affected by disasters please visit redcross.org/volunteer.
Sitting at the dinner table, my whole family laughing, my Uncle Sammy once again tells the same story that, in my mind, is paired with the essence of who he was. He would always smile as he told it, even though I’m quite sure that on the day the story took place, he was doing the exact opposite. See, my Uncle Sammy was a paratrooper in Central America, and in his youth, he was quite proud to have earned the title. Unfortunately for him and his pride, during his very last training jump, he managed to land not on his target, and not even on the ground near his target, but instead, in an unsuspecting and probably quite surprised tree. With that, he managed to break his leg, expel himself from the paratroopers, and was instead sent to Germany to be the assistant of a Jewish chaplain stationed there not long after the end of World War II. Though the story told at the dinner table would usually end here, followed by the continuous teasing of my family, his military experience did not. My Uncle Sammy, a once paratrooper, now chaplain’s assistant and Jewish American soldier, instead went on to help a still-grieving community heal from the recent trauma of the Holocaust.
My grandfather passed when I was still relatively young. Yet, I will always remember the tribute the Navy paid to him when he passed, for how much it honored both his memory and his service, even though he had been active many, many years before. Though I only had to chance to know him when I was young, meaning I never got the chance to hear about his service from him, my dad was able later to tell me about his time in the military. He had enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War and spent most of his time repairing ship motors in Japan and Hawaii. Two Navy members came to his memorial service and presented us with the American flag. To this day, every time I see it, proudly framed in a wooden triangle, I always think of him.
My mom was born an army brat on a base near Huntsville, Alabama, to my grandmother, an outgoing civil rights activist, and my grandfather, an army engineer, serving during Vietnam. They entered the service right as the sputnik missile was being launched into space, meaning that all the engineers stationed there were working hard to catch up. Being the critical mission that it was, the debate was rampant in the arsenal, and to encourage the troops to get back on track so that the USA could win the space race, John F Kennedy himself showed up to the base. My grandfather met the president with an outstretched hand and a quiet “wow.” Telling the story now, my grandfather always assures us that this was not in response to meeting the president of the United States, but instead was a reaction to the president’s choice of clothes. “I’d never seen a $1500 suit in real life before.”
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