Foster City Woman Heads to East Coast to Aid in Sandy Relief

The American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter has sent 19 additional local volunteers to New York and New Jersey, including a Foster City woman, to provide assistance to those affected by Hurricane Sandy and Wednesday's Nor’Easter along the East Coast.

The 19 volunteers will join the 29 previously deployed to aid in the relief efforts. A total of 128 volunteers have now been deployed from the Monterey and San Francisco Bay Areas.

Local residents that have deployed are: Donna Stroop of Union City, Ollie Washington of Hayward, Lee Woods of Vacaville, Lance Friis of Pleasant Hill, Isabel Lenssen of Richmond, Brian Whitlow of San Francisco, Patti Styka of Foster City, Dani Webb of Pleasanton, Rodney Lehr of San Carlos, and Kevin Louie, Rosalie Masuda and Quoc Tran of Oakland and Nanette Winterfelt.

They will be assisting clients in a wide range of activities including feeding, client casework, sheltering and mass care.

John Williams, Bob Hewitt, Pat Morales, Charles Jones, Mike Pringle, and Michael Yee have all deployed as teams of two, each team driving Emergency Response Vehicles across the country from the Burlingame, Fairfield and Oakland Red Cross offices.

These vehicles provide hot meals, snacks, water and relief supplies to affected neighborhoods.

Wednesday night’s Nor’Easter brought heavy rain, strong winds and snow to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast prolonging power outages to the 810,000 customers who continue to stay without power and impact several areas already affected by Superstorm Sandy, causing additional power outages.

In advance of the cold temperatures, we handed out thousands of ready-to-eat meals and cold weather items for people in New York and New Jersey such asblankets, hand and foot warmers, hats and gloves, ponchos and socks.

As weather conditions improve, the American Red Cross is ramping back up and expanding its large relief operations to provide shelter, hot meals, relief supplies and comfort to people in New Jersey and New York as weather and road conditions permit.

Since Superstorm Sandy has hit, the Red Cross has served more than 3.3 million meals and snacks, provided nearly 30,000 health services and emotional support contacts and handed out more than 124,000 relief items to clients.

There have been over 117,000 overnight stays at Red Cross and partner shelters and this number continues to rise. Wednesday night about 7,600 people affected by Sandy stayed in more than 110 Red Cross and partner shelters.

FINANCIAL DONATIONS NEEDED

 The Red Cross has been helping people since before Sandy made landfall and will continue to help for weeks to come as families get back on their feet. This is likely to be the biggest Red Cross response in the U.S. in the past five years.  Those who want to help can make a donation to support American Red Cross Disaster Relief by visiting www.redcross.org or calling 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767). People can also text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. People can also use the “donate” feature on the free Red Cross Apps to support the Red Cross relief response. Contributions may also be sent to local American Red Cross chapters. 

LOOKING FOR LOVED ONES

The Red Cross Safe and Well website is also available. People can access the site and let loved ones know where they are. There are several ways to register on Safe and Well, or search for a loved one. From a computer, visit redcross.org; from a smart phone, visit www.redcross.org/safeandwell or call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) to be connected with one’s local Red Cross chapter.

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