By Gordon Williams For most Red Cross volunteers, deployment is an interlude in their life--a few weeks in a disaster zone, helping victims of storm or flood or wildfire. For volunteer Haya Khateeb of Wenatchee, WA, deployment in the wake of Hurricane Irma was an odyssey--lasting nearly six weeks and taking her from Wenatchee to … Continue reading A LONG AND FAR-REACHING DEPLOYMENT
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
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
A Long Trek from the Northwest to Help Hurricane Victims
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 … Continue reading A Long Trek from the Northwest to Help Hurricane Victims
These Maps Sharpen our Hurricane Response
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. The American Red Cross is making use of very advanced types of maps, called WebMAPs, in its response … Continue reading These Maps Sharpen our Hurricane Response
American Red Cross NW Region 