July 3, 2002
Disaster teams leap into action
American Red Cross Disaster Action Teams help displaced residents
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Responding to everything from a home fire to natural disaster to terrorist attack, trained volunteers with the American Red Cross provide a helping hand to people in need.
Locally, more than 70 people volunteer for Disaster Action Teams. They cover a six-county area around Traverse City to give 24/7 coverage in case of fire, tornado or other catastrophic event. The volunteers are divided among seven teams, which rotate being on call weekly.
Walter and Sally Draeger of Traverse City began volunteering their services to the local Red Cross in 1998. After Walter retired from parochial ministry for the Episcopalian Church, he and his wife wanted to get involved in the community in a new way.
They attended training classes on mass care, shelter operations, family service operations and other issues disaster related care. They also completed extra training to become nationally certified and, despite being in their 70s, put their names on a call list for nationwide disasters.
Their knowledge was quickly put to the test.
"Just after our training we went to Florida and, coincidentally, a tornado skipped right over our hotel and landed about a mile away at a trailer camp," Walter Draeger recalled. "We spent a day helping out at a shelter there just after we'd been trained."
The Draegers have since volunteered with Disaster Action Teams at floods in Texas and assisted at the World Trade Center in December. They spent 17 days there helping displaced residents around Ground Zero begin putting their lives back together.
"It was a real mix of people and I think they were looking for hope," Draeger said.
"Many of them were right in apartments near the World Trade Center, a lot of students who had lost everything. The Liberty Fund [donations to the Red Cross from around the country] funded all the money we were giving them."
"Until you experience losing everything, you don't know how difficult it is, how shocking," he noted.
Locally, the rising number of home fires in the region have kept Disaster Action Teams busy. Fires are one of the most frequent causes of Red Cross assistance in this area.
In a fire or other disaster, quick response is the key. In March, seven volunteers assembled within 30 minutes at the downtown Traverse City fire that destroyed a number of apartments. In the blizzard, the volunteers provided food and drinks to the firefighters and helped the displaced and shocked residents find shelter, clothing, prescriptions and food.
"We just call the volunteers and they just say, 'Yes,'" said Dave Worley, director of emergency services for the local Red Cross chapter. "It's amazing because they'll get a phone call at three in the morning about a house fire and they'll be there."
Sue Davis has helped out at two area fires, one of which was the downtown fire. A volunteer for more than two years, she was in the first group that received disaster training locally. She finds helping others rewarding.
"You see a lot of very kind acts, it is pretty heartwarming," Davis said. "The people I've written distribution vouchers to for groceries or coats or boots have just thanked me profoundly."
One volunteer, Julie Jacobson, has spearheaded an effort to care for pets displaced by disaster. When a fire destroys a home, families moving to temporary shelter cannot take their pets with them and they often wind up at the Cherryland Humane Society. Jacobson instituted a program to better track these animals and give owners peace of mind that they would be reunited with their pets.
Such volunteer efforts are the backbone of the American Red Cross, said Lisa Marks, executive director of the local chapter. The more than 1.5 million volunteers nationwide work with just 35,000 paid staff members.
Marks said that the local Red Cross works closely with each county's emergency plan and is an integral component of that plan. Volunteers are trained and ready to help with food, shelter, communication and support as needed.
"The Red Cross is this country's volunteer disaster organization," she said. "We always think of a disaster as a tornado ripping through town or a hurricane or 9/11. All are tragic but it is just as tragic when a local resident loses a home and everything in it to a fire."
With the recent flood of donations to aid victims of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Marks said the Red Cross local chapters - like many charitable organizations - have been struggling to meet local needs.
Initiating a local funding appeal last week, Marks also noted that the subsequent controversy about how funds have been distributed prompted the national Red Cross to clarify its money disbursement policy up front. Money sent for local programs stays local, money earmarked for a specific national disaster will go to that fund until all needs there are met. Then dollars above that are put in a general disaster fund.
"This is a growing time for us, we have learned so much at the national level," Marks said. "We are so glad that people turned to the Red Cross as their avenue for contributions but now we need to help here because we rely 100 percent on local contributions - our budget comes from the community."