By Gordon Williams When Red Cross volunteer Mauri Shuler of Olympia, WA deployed to the California wildfires last month, she found much about the experience old and familiar but some of it new and challenging. Flying into a disaster scene is nothing new for Mauri. She did it many times in her years … Continue reading Why Deployment Was Different for This Volunteer
Volunteer Returns to his Roots to Survey Harvey’s Damage
By Dale Steinke Technology, including a new phone app, helped Walla Walla retiree William “Bill” Herrington and his fellow American Red Cross volunteers complete numerous home damage assessments and find their way around the Texas Gulf Coast to support Hurricane Harvey relief. Herrington, an upper Texas Gulf Coast native, became a volunteer last December with … Continue reading Volunteer Returns to his Roots to Survey Harvey’s Damage
Make Fire Prevention Week a Week of Fire Safety Lessons
By Gordon Williams Fire Prevention Week is October 8-14 this year, and Lisa Braxton of the National Fire Protection Association thinks it is a great time for parents to drill kids--young kids especially--in the lessons of fire safety. Braxton, in the Public Education Division of the NFPA, lays out a five-night set of fire safety … Continue reading Make Fire Prevention Week a Week of Fire Safety Lessons
Helping to Heal the Emotional Scars of Hurricane Harvey
By Gordon Williams The task of most Red Cross volunteers in a disaster zone is to provide victims with food, water and shelter. The task of volunteer Ginger Van Ry in a disaster zone is to provide skilled emotional support to victims whose response to disaster can range from stoic acceptance to deep, crippling depression. … Continue reading Helping to Heal the Emotional Scars of Hurricane Harvey
Help for Honing your Earthquake Survival Skills
By Gordon Williams The Great Washington ShakeOut--the moment each year when we’re supposed to practice our earthquake survival skills--comes this year at 10:19 a.m. on Thursday, October 19. Keeping your drop, cover and hold-on skills up to speed is a pretty compelling notion in a region where earthquakes are all too common. As the state … Continue reading Help for Honing your Earthquake Survival Skills
Helping After Two Hurricanes in the Virgin Islands
By Gordon Williams Photos by Amelia Iraheta Amelia Iraheta of Seattle finds conditions harsh on St. Thomas, where she is part of the American Red Cross relief operation in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Wrecked homes and flooded streets are everywhere; there still are power lines down and there is a curfew to keep cars off … Continue reading Helping After Two Hurricanes in the Virgin Islands
How the Red Cross tends to Spiritual and Physical Needs
By Gordon Williams Pictures by Tim Serban Most disaster victims need more than just a meal and a safe place to sleep, says Portland, OR based Red Cross service area leader Tim Serban. They also need emotional and spiritual support to help them get through an ordeal that threatens to tear their lives apart. … Continue reading How the Red Cross tends to Spiritual and Physical Needs
Feeding Storm Victims in a Small Texas Town
By Gordon Williams Pictures by Norman Bottenberg Some Red Cross volunteers, now aiding hurricane victims in Texas or Florida, can date their first deployment to Superstorm Sandy in 2012. For others the first deployment was to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. For Norm Bottenberg, of Sammamish WA, the first deployment was the eruption of Mount St. … Continue reading Feeding Storm Victims in a Small Texas Town
Coping With Disasters in Our Own Backyard
By Gordon Williams It wasn’t a disaster on the scale of hurricanes Harvey or Irma, but for residents of the Carriage House apartments in SeaTac, WA, the fire that tore through the building on a recent Friday night was a disaster just the same. As with Harvey and Irma, it brought out the Red Cross … Continue reading Coping With Disasters in Our Own Backyard
A 3,000-Mile Journey to Help the Victims of Irma
By Gordon Williams It was 9:30 on a Monday night--barely 48 hours after Hurricane Irma ravaged Florida--when the phone rang in the Everson, WA home of Dale and Audrey Snapper. Everson is only a few miles from Bellingham--headquarters of the Northwest Washington chapter of the American Red Cross. Would the Snappers be willing to drive … Continue reading A 3,000-Mile Journey to Help the Victims of Irma
American Red Cross NW Region 