By: Gordon Williams, Northwest Region Volunteer

The most common sort of disaster Red Cross volunteers respond to is a single-family house fire. But for long-time Red Cross volunteer Lynn Jackson, her deployment to the tornadoes in Arkansas earlier this year was a different kind of response.

Lynn went to Arkansas as a Red Cross Disaster Health Services supervisor. There she found the Red Cross caring for approximately 1500 disaster victims housed in about 72 hotels.

“Some clients were as far as an hour-and-a-half drive
away from the response headquarters,” she says. “We had to rely on phone calls and text messages to stay in touch. It was most challenging.” 

Still, Lynn thrives on challenges. Her first Red Cross response was to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the time, she was affiliated with the Red Cross in Texas.

“We didn't have to deploy to the disaster scene,” she recalls. “The people from Katrina were evacuated to us.”

The Red Cross was still assisting Katrina evacuees when Hurricane Rita struck Southeast Texas barely a month later. Lynn helped bring medical care to Red Cross shelters after both Katrina and Rita.  

A story several years ago told how Lynn worked at multiple wildfires in California in 2017 and 2018. That included the swarm of fires that hit northern California late in 2017 and the historic Carr wildfire in 2018 that destroyed more than 1,000 homes and forced thousands of fire victims to shelters. The article also mentioned the award Lynn received at a Red Cross Volunteer Recognition Ceremony in 2019 for having put in 500 hours of time at her local chapter in a year’s time. That worked out to 21 full-time days given to the Red Cross in a single year.

Despite that workload, the blog article explained that Lynn still managed to do two to three 12-hour days a week as a labor and delivery nurse at Valley Medical Center in Renton, WA. 

It has been years since she got that award, but her pace has hardly slowed. Lynn now divides her time between Washington and Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. She is active in both the Red Cross Northwest Region and the Alaska Region. 

Lynn uses her training and experience to advise the Pacific Division of the American Red Cross on providing health services at disaster scenes.

The Red Cross response in Alaska poses unique challenges that aren't always present in the Lower 48.

“Our biggest challenge is limited resources,” Lynn says.

The island she lives on has a population of 6,000, but only 70 or 80 people live in her community. She has no cell service and limited internet service. The nearest Walmart is in Ketchikan, reachable only by plane or ferry. The nearest Red Cross office is in Juneau, the state capital. Despite unique challenges, Lynn assists in Alaska whenever she can.

“I was deployed to the Haines mudslides,” she says. “It was a virtual deployment. Most deployments here [in Alaska] are virtual." 

When a fire broke out in her community, local residents stepped in to help out with financial assistance coming from the Red Cross. 

There is no hospital on the island and available medical facilities are few and far between. In her role with the Red Cross, Lynn helps residents who have been impacted by disasters get prescriptions filled and help find such medical items as eyeglasses. 

Given the sparse cell phone and internet service in her community, even a virtual response can be a challenge.
All that puts a premium on Lynn’s long years as a medical professional and the mountains of experience she has gained as a Red Cross volunteer.

"We don't have many resources, so we have to be creative,” she says. 

Lynn says she has no intention of leaving the Red Cross.

“I really enjoy what I do for the Red Cross,” she says. “I appreciate the opportunity to serve my community. I will continue to deploy as long as I can."