One destroyed house along the route where Red Cross volunteers are providing meals and snacks following the Pennsylvania flooding. Photo credit: Rick Campion/American Red Cross
It’s now day 11 in our Pennsylvania flood deployment with the Red Cross and we’ve settled into a regular mobile feeding route in the mobile feeding truck (ERV). We travel about 2 hours to get to our first scheduled stop and then serve between 100-150 meals. Our route follows the river and some of the homes that were very close to the river bank (see pic). We recognize our “regulars” and it’s fun to give and get hugs from people who really appreciate the help that the Red Cross provides. Ah, this our reward.
When people see “Minneapolis, MN” on the side of our truck, they’re always surprised and grateful at how far we’ve traveled to serve them.
The Red Cross disaster relief effort in Pennsylvania has served more than 221,000 meals/snacks and it is now down to 4 open shelters. We can see that people are slowly getting back on their feet. Many of the original shelters were opened in schools and it causes some logistical problems with the school’s now regularly scheduled activities. So after 3 weeks, those affected by the floods are encouraged to find alternate housing arrangements.
We expect to be released from the operation next week and look forward to coming home.
Dennis Parker is holding onto optimism that his family will soon have a new place to call home and move out of the Red Cross shelter in north Minneapolis for families displaced by the May 22 tornado. Photo credit: Bill Fitler/American Red Cross
“I’ll never forget that day,” says Dennis Parker Sr. while sitting down for breakfast at the Red Cross shelter at North Commons Recreations Center nearly 3 weeks after the tornado ripped through north Minneapolis.
“It started raining, it got real windy. I didn’t hear the siren until it was all over,” recalls Parker. “When the tornado came, it sounded like a bunch of trains. Bang! Bang! Bang! The tornado ripped the trees right out of the ground. It laid down five of them on our house, and we had a tree limb in our attic. Our basement flooded. It didn’t touch the neighbors on either side of us.”
Parker’s speech is animated as he describes how he, his wife, and four children sought refuge in their house during the storm, but his voice loses some intensity as he shares details about his family’s experiences looking for a new place to call home.
“My wife is in the computer room looking for other places for us to live. We’ll go visit anything she finds, and then we may go to the library. Yesterday we checked out a couple of apartments, but landlords don’t want to rent to us because we’re low income.”
Cots placed in a circle help families create personal spaces in the Red Cross shelter sleeping area at North Commons Recreation Center in Minneapolis. Photo credit: Amanda Mark/American Red Cross
For Parker, shelter life is something he has come to accept. The shelter’s sleeping area is in the North Commons gym. While not very private, each family has tucked their cots closely together, leaving any extra space they can manage between the different family groups. Families with small children have arranged a little play area in the middle of the cots for them.
“The Red Cross has been doing the best they can,” says Parker. “These people we call family, we’re all in the sandbox together. I kind of like being here. We really haven’t had any problems.”
During a graduation party held in the park behind North Commons a few days ago, and how the party organizers donated the rest of their food to those living in the shelter. He helped by cooking at the center’s outdoor grill.
That night, Parker met with a local group that’s helping people find new places to live after the storm. Parker says he’s holding onto optimism for him and his family.
“They were very uplifting, very reassuring,” he says. “They say ‘soon.’ Maybe we’ll find out today.”
(Reporting by Bill Fitler, Red Cross disaster relief volunteer)
Red Cross shelter night manager Sharon Collin says that she prefers volunteering during the night shift because "it's when you get to know the people and talk through the day." Sharon and McKai have a nightly chat. Photo credit: Amanda Mark/American Red Cross
Red Cross volunteer Sharon Collin is a natural organizer. A former movie theater manager, accountant and school teacher, she’s at ease while directing the flow of traffic that comes through the North Commons Recreation Center where the Red Cross shelter is housed.
Sharon is the night manager at this Red Cross shelter where 43 residents are attempting to rebuild their lives after the May 22 tornado destroyed blocks of North Minneapolis. One week into working at this shelter and Sharon has her routine down.
“I’m calling it organized disorder,” she says. “People are welcomed to come and go as they like as we try to create normalcy in the abnormal.”
Nearly all at once, Sharon sends someone to the snack room, finds a caseworker for another shelter resident, and hugs three kids in between the two tasks, promising one that she’ll tuck her in later.
“We have a lights out time,” she explained. “But one man works nights. Other people are night owls. I offer to fix snacks and hot meals during the night as people come through.”
Red Cross shelter night manager Sharon Collin shares a quiet moment with Willtin, 4. Photo credit: Amanda Mark/American Red Cross
While Sharon has responsibilities and organizational tasks to ensure that the shelter runs smoothly, she says she spends most of her time listening.
“No one wants to be here,” she said. “I listen to where they’re at, answer Red Cross questions, and match them up with services so they can move forward.”
Sharon travelled from Cumberland Foreside, Maine, to be the shelter night manager. She’s volunteered for the Red Cross in various ways for the past 6 years: working on disaster teams, supporting call centers and filling in any way she can, but her favorite assignment is working at shelters.
“People often enter a shelter at their lowest point. Red Cross volunteers enter a shelter, fresh with adrenaline and ready to help. Sometimes that’s really what people need. Someone to support them and provide the energy they don’t have.”
(Reporting and photos by Amanda Mark, Red Cross Volunteer)
The reality of a long road to recovery is becoming clear for families displaced or homeless following the powerful tornado that swept through Minneapolis on Sunday, May 22.
Red Cross responder Sarah Russell talks with Lillian Scott and her son Damon about next steps for their recovery from the May 22 tornado in Minneapolis. Photo credit: Lynette Nyman/American Red Cross
Standing outside the shelter located at the armory in northeast Minneapolis Lillian Scott welcomes her son Damon, 9, who has returned from a day at school.
Scott has been living at the shelter since Sunday, when the tornado touched down in what she describes as a neighborhood that now faces even more challenges.
“Already the neighborhood was bad,” says Scott. “Now it’s not safe for my son to play. There’s so much debris. It’s covered with trees. We can’t stay there. It’s just bad.”
An estimated 5,000 people are affected. Many have found temporary refuge with friends and family. While others, like Scott, have made a new home at a shelter where the Red Cross is providing cots, blankets, and hugs during a tough time.
Scott, whose top priority is finding a new home, is standing strong for her son.
“If I cry, then he’ll cry,” says Scott. “If I’m okay, then he’s okay. Eventually we’ll be taken care of. I know something good will happen.”
(Reporting by Red Cross responders Lynette Nyman and Sarah Russell)
Jill, our director of emergency services, answers:
A Red Cross volunteer hands out snacks during the flood preparations in Hastings, Minnesota. Photo credit: Andrea Bredow/American Red Cross
We have shelters ready to open their doors for us in the Twin Cities metro area if flooding displaces people from their homes. We have clean-up kits containing mops, brooms, cleaning supplies, gloves, and other necessities, ready to hand to people who are cleaning up their homes. We have thousands (literally!) of snacks and bottles of water in our garage, for us and other chapters around the state to share from mobile feeding trucks (ERVs) or at shelters. We have lots of trained and willing volunteers, many who have stepped forward and have added to their training in recent months so their skills are fresh. Many, many volunteers have stepped forward to help in all of these efforts so that we’re more ready to quickly help people…whether it floods or not! So my answer is a resounding, “yes!”
Red Cross TC: Thank you!! We suspected this was the case, but wanted to ask anyway, being the curious types that we are!!
By Cathryn Kennedy, Red Cross Volunteer, Twin Cities Area Chapter
Riley, 2, gets a snack with help from Red Cross volunteer Bonnie Reyers at the Bloomington shelter. Riley and his mother escaped the apartment fire early Tuesday morning. Photo credit: Cathryn Kennedy/American Red Cross
By 10 a.m. the list of tasks was getting long. Shelter Manager Ruth Talford needed to order pizzas for lunch, arrange transportation to off-site showers, and set up two family meeting rooms, including one for discussing financial assistance and another for providing stress relief and counseling. Later in the afternoon, Talford would need to help families get to where they could request government emergency assistance funds.
Meanwhile families in the shelter were busy, too.
Grandmother Eva Dale needed emergency medical care for care of her feet, but first she had to prepare granddaughter Kiara for kindergarten. That meant finding some school clothes and transportation to Kiara’s elementary school.
Red Cross volunteers sprung into action and within 15 minutes Kiara was decked out in a school outfit and winter coat, but she still needed shoes. So did her sister, Kiana, as well as Grandmother Eva. Shoes were in short supply so one volunteer was given names of two nearby neighbors who had offered to help.
School bus driver Tim Hamm stopped by the shelter to check on one of his students. Hamm offered to help and later dropped off diapers for younger children. Photo credit: Cathryn Kennedy/American Red Cross
The night of the fire Eva was caring for her granddaughters, while their mother was in Iowa. Eva woke up in the night smelling smoke and when she opened the window for ventilation, she saw flames leaping out of a neighbor’s apartment and a parent yelling for help. She awoke her granddaughters and dropped them out the window to waiting rescue workers before jumping out herself. With no time to get shoes, Eva suffered frostbite, and getting her to a doctor was added to the shelter manager’s list urgent things to do.
Meanwhile, Bloomington school bus driver Tim Hamm, who had Kiara on his route, stopped by to see if she was all right. Asking how he could help, he offered to purchase some diapers for a couple of younger children.
Two-year-old Riley and his mother were waiting for a cab to take him to day care, and other families were headed out to go buy new clothes with Red Cross vouchers.
Before noon nine pizzas arrived and after some nourishment everyone went back to work helping families get lives back in order after a fire disaster.
American Red Cross Minnesota and Dakotas Region 