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Red Cross Shelters Provide Safety in the Storm
Written by
Bonnie J. Gillespie
, Staff Writer and Photographer, RedCross.org
Wednesday, September 15, 2004 — Mobile, Alabama – “Our house might flood in the hurricane so we came here,” said eleven-year-old Amber Lambert, curled up on a blanket inside a Red Cross shelter in Mobile. “This is four category, and that means it’s gonna be a big one.”
These young Mobile residents used card playing to help pass the time waiting on Ivan to strike.
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Hurricane Ivan, the “big one” looming in the Gulf of Mexico, has sent thousands of coastal residents scurrying to safety, filling shelters to capacity and jamming major roadways. The American Red Cross has opened 62 shelters in Alabama alone, with dozens more opened throughout Mississippi, Florida, Georgia and other areas threatened by the powerful Category 4 storm.
“We opened yesterday afternoon and have had a steady stream of people coming in since,” said Barbett Settles, a Red Cross volunteer at the Leflore Magnet High School shelter. “People were coming in all night long and all day today. But now we’re about to reach capacity at 2,000 and are having to send people to other locations.”
“It’s a really frightening storm, and people know they need to get somewhere safe,” she added.
Much like other shelters, blankets and cots lined the every hallway of the high school, with the cafeteria offering not only hot meals but a gathering place for card-playing and other activities to take residents’ minds off of the monstrous storm churning steadily their direction.
As winds whipped outside with increasing strength, Red Cross workers at the Alabama Gulf Coast area chapter hunkered down as well inside their headquarters building in downtown.
”If we leave, we might not be able to get back in, and we want to be accessible for whatever needs arise.” said chapter manager Carol Rittenhouse. “Our volunteers are very committed but many are really stretched because they’ve been in Florida helping with relief efforts for Charley and Frances. Now they have to come back home and deal with this. It’s very stressful.”
Red Cross volunteers from across the nation are already lending a hand to their Mobile counterparts, though. One Seattle-based team even drove a Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle cross-county to be on site and delivering supplies to hurricane victims as soon as the storm passes.
However, many local residents are still preparing for the worst, like Dura McKinis who brought her granddaughter Amber and other children from their neighborhood to the nearby Red Cross shelter.
“My house has flooded before, and I knew when they started talking about the storm surge and the rain that it probably would again,” she said. “So I gathered up the kids this afternoon and came on over here to the shelter. It helps being here because you can feel everybody pulling together and helping each other out. It really does make a difference.”
You can help the victims of hurricanes, floods and thousands of other disasters across the country each year by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, which enables the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to those in need. Call 1-800-HELP NOW or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions to the Disaster Relief Fund may be sent to your local American Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P. O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. Internet users can make a secure online contribution by visiting our Online Donation Page.
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