Long Beach volunteers work with the Red Cross to assist those most in need across the country. Even if it takes them to the other side of it.
Maria Hanson had no idea where she was headed.
The retired schoolteacher from Belmont Shore has been a Red Cross volunteer for three years, and was ready to go back out into the field. Volunteers sign up to be placed in areas that need their assistance without knowing where they’ll be placed, and Hanson soon found herself smack-dab in the middle of the worst flood the country has seen in over a decade.
“You kind of set yourself up to get ready,” Hanson explains over the phone from Wapello, Iowa—a city of around 2,000 built on a tributary of the Mississippi river, sitting less than five miles from the main river itself. Like many small towns in the region, Wapello was hit hard by rapidly rising floodwaters that have broken through protective levees, helplessly attempting to block its path.
“The levees broke and all the houses were immediately underwater,” Hanson says. “As the river gets bigger and more powerful, it’s going to continue all the way until it gets down to the Gulf Coast.”
A workstation and shelter like the one Hanson runs in Wapello.
She’s already followed it’s path to Wapello after stints in Cedar Falls—138 miles to the north—and Muskatine, where the damage has been extensive and so Hanson has been busy. Her main assignments are to handle case work and organize her team of volunteers—in the local church, where the temporary shelter is set up—who assist those in need with whatever they can. Everything from food, shelter and clothes to simply a person to talk to. Often they hand out cash cards to families so they can purchase what they need to recover from the disaster. Some won’t be able to no matter what they’re given.
“The snows are melting up north,” Hanson explains, “And the levees have broken so especially at Cedar Falls and Wapello, it’s become a toxic mix. It really goes over and picks up everything from the farms and carries it away. It’s a rush of overflowing sewage.”
It’s the kind of disaster that residents have been dreading, and they need all the help they can get. The Red Cross sends as many volunteers as they can, and Hanson is not alone from the International City. Longtime volunteer Chris Hook was also deployed, but finds herself in Wisconsin where she’s able to monitor communications between the 36 operating shelters in affected Midwestern areas. Hook was not able to return phone calls for comment.
At the time of our conversation, Hanson expected to be back home in Belmont by this Thursday, the third. Her husband Roy—who interested her in volunteering in the first place when he joined the Red Cross—stayed behind to tend to Hanson’s 93-year-old mother, she explains with a slight accent from her native Puerto Rico. For now, she remains at home, more than 1,850 miles away from home, where the people have welcomed her as a neighbor.
“They’re just very, very nice people,” she says. “Very kind, very strong. They don’t want to ask for any help at all because theyre used to relying on themselves and their neighbors.
“But they’ve been devastated.
“Because in many places, they’ve had floods, tornadoes, and then floods again. These are very proud people, and they are so appreciate of our help. They tell us that everyday.”
Red Cross volunteers help victims with whatever it is they need – something most people are shocked to discover.
It’s what makes people like Maria continue to pack up and leave for wherever she is needed. Like the disaster victims, many people don’t know that the Red Cross does more than just collect and distribute blood to those who need it. Hanson and Hook do their best to provide realtime assistance in the field, but eight more local volunteers man emergency hotlines to direct those in need to shelters and caseworkers. Even in a place as seemingly far away as Wapello, Iowa, people in Southern California have an immediate impact.
And you can, too. Her heart bleeds for the victims and she doesn’t try to hide it, so she’s adamant about how much it helps to give directly to the Red Cross at any level—local, state or national.
“It’s their choice, but it’s important that they contribute so these people in need can have help,” she says.
She and the other volunteers continue doing all they can to assist directly, but volunteer shifts run out eventually and Hanson will be back home in Long Beach shortly. A long way from the flood waters that have displaced many that came into her shelters. A long way from where she’s most at home.
By Ryan ZumMallen, Managing Editor