American Red Cross Disaster Newsroom

Written by Winnie Romeril

New York, January 15, 2013 — At a glance, living in a hotel for months on end sounds quite luxurious. But for parents like Flora Mendez Salinas, the isolation and added burdens are tremendous. When Superstorm Sandy hit in October 2012, all at once Flora lost her belongings, her apartment and her job. Her story is typical for many of the families living in limbo in more than 3,000 New York City-area hotel rooms.

“There are a lot of families still trying to survive in their homes,” said Red Cross casework supervisor Christina Hujanen. “A lot of them don’t want to leave for fear of things being taken. They’re just hoping that something will happen that will allow them to go back to how it was before the storm.”

Despite this valiant attempt to make it on their own, many storm survivor’s bank accounts are empty, their credit cards are maxed, and they simply can’t take living without running water, heat or electricity through the New York winter, as they have been since late October. Because of this, each day 20 to 30 additional people are requesting housing assistance from NY City authorities and are being placed in hotels.

However, the challenges are many. Firstly, few hotels allow cooking in the rooms, which means families like Flora’s must buy every meal — a costly endeavor in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Every couple of weeks, the Red Cross loads up debit cards with hundreds of dollars per family so they won’t go hungry.

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Written by Joellen Barak

NEW YORK, NY, January 12, 2013 – It was just a small plot of land. That’s what Hyacinth Charles thought back in 1963, when she was helping get the American Red Cross in the U.S. Virgin Islands started. The fledgling chapter just needed a small plot of land for their offices. Hyacinth persuaded a wealthy man to donate the land, and the chapter began to build. Little did she know that this was the beginning of her lifetime involvement with the Red Cross—and that she would end up literally saving the lives of an entire family 50 years later in New York City.

Hyacinth, of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has been volunteering in New York as part of the Superstorm Sandy response. She works in the client casework call center, a place residents affected by Sandy and still facing challenges can call for information that will help them as they rebuild their lives.

Hyacinth knew that the woman she was talking to seemed distraught. “She was crying before she even started talking,” she says. She told Hyacinth she could only think of one way to solve her problems—she was going to kill her children and then herself. There happened to be a volunteer chaplain working as a fellow call taker near Hyacinth in the call center that day. Hyacinth immediately signaled for him to help with the call. Before the chaplain could respond, Hyacinth continued to listen as the woman sobbed out her story. It turns out that the caller had lost both her home and her job as a result of the storm. A single mom, she was at the end of her rope. She truly felt that ending their lives was the only way to help her family.

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Written by Joellen Barak

NEW YORK, NY, January 10, 2013 – Since the time of Clara Barton, American Red Cross nurses have been iconic in images on the battlefield, helping the wounded, or vaccinating children in faraway places. But today’s Red Cross nurse, especially a disaster nurse, fills many more roles.

Over two months after Superstorm Sandy, teams of Red Cross nurses are still seeing and talking to survivors every day. Jeanne Spears is the chief disaster health services nurse for the Sandy response. Most of the people Spears and her teams see are now housed in hotels and other transitional housing. Spears says that the 2-4 home-visit appointments and 20-25 phone calls her team takes per day run the gamut of disaster victim needs.

“At this time, we’re not replacing lost medicines,” Spears says, “but we are reassessing needs that were presented earlier, including medicines and durable medical equipment.” For example, if a someone needed a walker after the storm, nurses check in to see if that need still exists, and to assess if there are other health needs that should be addressed.

Spears and her team work closely with Red Cross caseworkers and the casework call center. She commends the caseworkers, “They do a good job of identifying needs that we can help with.”

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Written by Carl Manning

When Michelle Carney took her winter break as a student at the University of California-Berkeley, she knew she wanted to do more than hang out with friends and family.

Active in the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter in San Francisco for the past three years, Michelle knew she could help those affected by Hurricane Sandy that struck the East Coast.

For over two weeks Michelle has been among those working on a Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle handing out hot food, drinks, and snacks in the hard-hit Rockaways on Long Island, NY. She said the hot meals have been especially appreciated in frigid temperatures by those unable to cook in their homes.

Since the storm struck in October, much has changed in the Rockaways. Tons of sand that once covered the streets has been removed and electrical power has been restored to much of the area. Yet, there is still a need to provide food and other basic necessities to people striving to recover from the disaster.

“We want to be out here helping and this is the most hands-on way to provide assistance,” she said.
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Written by Adrian Brune

A call came in; an urgent dispatch went out. A far Rockaways resident – partially blind and in declining health – on one of the top floors of a high rise had gone without his diabetes medication for days. He needed urgent assistance.

Nurse Margie Simmons and Jeff Lichorobiec, a mental health specialist – both volunteers with the Red Cross – contacted area pharmacies for an emergency supply. After one pharmacy turned them away, the NAACP Disaster Relief Team took the case: Driving over to the apartment of Rabbi Melvin Williams, the team – known internally as the “strike team” – loaded Mr. Williams into the van and took him to a local Duane Reade where the prescription was signed, sealed and delivered without a hitch.

Williams’ invitation to Christmas dinner was just a bonus for the strike team, a crew of about 100 members from chapters across the country that has been on scene to assist victims of Hurricane Sandy since two days after the devastating storm made landfall on Oct. 29. With a 1981 mandate to work in tandem with the Red Cross whenever and wherever disaster hits – including New York 31 years later – the NAACP has helped put the city back together by feeding victims in Breezy Point, distributing supplies in Coney Island and, on occasion, triaging a convalescent in the Rockaways.

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Written by Caroline Boardman

NEW YORK, NY (Dec. 29, 2012) – It’s been 63 days since Superstorm Sandy made landfall in New York and New Jersey and there are still more than 1,000 Red Cross workers assisting with the relief and recovery efforts.

Cold temperatures and snowy conditions may have arrived in much of the Northeast, but that has not deterred the dedication and compassion of Sandy and Joe French, Red Cross volunteers from Santa Cruz, CA.

“We’ve been here in New York for the past eight days, working through the holiday. We’ve been volunteering with the Red Cross for the past eight years,” said Sandy French. “We got married just so we could go out on deployments together,” joked Joe, cracking a smile.

Out in the battered, seaside Rockaways, their spirits and energy levels were high as they drove the Red Cross emergency response vehicle (ERV) on their now familiar and daily mobile feeding route.

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