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. Continue reading
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
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. “They already know what happened,” says Serban. “Now they want to know why it happened and why such a terrible thing happened to them.” Continue reading
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. Helen on May 18, 1980–more than 37 years ago. Continue reading
By Gordon Williams
Published on September 11, 2017
Key West, Florida is 2,722 miles from Seattle–about as far apart as two cities in the continental United States can be. Yet that distance proved to be no obstacle when volunteers from the Northwest Region joined the army of Red Cross workers heading south to help the victims of Hurricane Irma. Continue reading
By Gordon Williams
The value of a map lays in its ability to deliver heaps of information to the user with just a glance: Distance, terrain, points of interest, population density and what the surrounding countryside is like. Continue reading
