Skip to Content

 

With 15 Greater Houston area locations, the Houston Red Cross is ready to help.

Volunteer Give Blood Take a Class

 

Volunteer Heroes

Chapter Volunteers Brave Fire and Ice Volunteer Responds to Apartment Fire in Her Own Neighborhood


Red Cross Disaster Action Team (DAT) volunteers are used to answering calls day or night to help neighbors affected by fire or other disasters in the Greater Houston area.  
 
But for DAT Sid Chipman, the recent fire at Cimarron Park Apartments in Katy was practically in her backyard. She was on her way home from a Red Cross class about 5:15 p.m. on January 12th when she "saw the smoke" from a fire whipping through the Cimarron Park Apartments – only a block and a half from her home. Ironically, the Red Cross class she had just completed was about helping with disasters. Chipman called Red Cross' Disaster Services at the Houston office to report the fire and the number of families affected.  
                                              
Fiery Blaze
Fire destroys apartment units in the Katy area. Red Cross helped 17 families.
 
 
The Katy community also reached out to help.  Katy Christian Ministries provided clothing and furniture for the fire victims.  In addition, two Katy area Wal-Mart stores showed their appreciation for the help Red Cross provided by making a donation to the Chapter.  Wal-Mart managers from Fry Road and Katy Mills, presented a $4,000 check.  
 
"It will help the Red Cross make up the money it spent helping the fire victims and will go to future disasters,"  Wal-Mart store  manager Kerry Mills said.  Several of the families left homeless by the fire are Wal-Mart employees.  
 
The Greater Houston Area Chapter responded to 65 fires in January and provided assistance to 114 families.  To become a member of the Red Cross Disaster Action Team call 713-526-8300.

Chapter Volunteers  Endure the Elements to Help Neighbors

Katy Fire VolunteersBy Dick Shell and  Jim MacKie When a January ice storm left more than 100,000 Oklahomans without electricity, the Greater Houston Area chapter sent volunteers,  vehicles and food  to help.  The Emergency  Communication Response Vehicle (ECRV),  piloted by John Moore  and Sal Gullo, was the  first to reach McAlester,  a town of 18,000 in  southeast Oklahoma.  There wasn’t a light bulb  burning in town.  The self-contained ECRV  would provide the critical phone, radio and  computer links to Red Cross resources. The  Chapter also sent 20,000 Heater Meals (self  Ready to Goheating meals ), from the Chapter’ s Disaster volunteers Dick Shell and Jim MacKie. warehouse.

Jim Mackie and Dick Shell headed north in an Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV). 
Driving up I-45, they hit freezing rain in Madisonville, Texas and by Corsicana their windshield washer fluid froze solid.  Their first dinner in McAlester was a heater meal by flashlight. 
 
A couple days later, the other Chapter ERV headed to Muskogee, OK, driven by Joe Luna and Julie Knobil. 

Eight additional ERV teams from other Chapters arrived to assist disaster victims.  The 24 ERV drivers slept  on cots in a room with no heat or electricity.  Red Cross and Baptist Men volunteers fed the victims. Red Cross bought the food and the Baptist Men cooked it. ERVs delivered the hot meals, heater meals, blankets and water, to shelters and rural communities. 

At its busiest, volunteers in McAlester provided more than 8000 hot meals and 2000 heater meal a day.  Ten days later  power was restored to most communities and Houston area volunteers headed home to  prepare for the next disaster.