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Thursday, May. 6, 1999

Local tornado relief efforts begin

Volunteers head north; fund raising under way

By GUY H. LAWRENCE
Staff Writer

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Zena Rios drops off items at the Trade Center for victims of the tornadoes. Club 98 was broadcasting from that location.

   Volunteers from the Corpus Christi area are heading toward disaster-stricken North Texas and the Midwest to aid tornado survivors.
   Even as volunteers prepared to leave, a local radio station began soliciting donations to raise at least $9,800 to help with the relief effort.
   The Coastal Bend chapter of the Red Cross and the local Salvation Army already have sent volunteers into Titus County, Texarkana and Oklahoma.
   Two Red Cross volunteers left Wednesday in the organization's emergency response vehicle, which will be used to serve food to the homeless and relief workers, said Shelley Parks, community relations director for the Red Cross in the Coastal Bend.
   A total of 22 volunteers have been on standby since Tuesday, she said.
   Blanche Gilbert and Mary Anderson left Wednesday in the emergency response vehicle, which can be used to serve 2,500 hot meals a day. They also were to issue cleaning supplies and distribute personal hygiene products, she said. Red Cross volunteers Bonnie Peters and John Lerma are expected to leave today to help with case management work in Texarkana.
   "I'll be interviewing some of the families to find out what their needs are and assisting them by issuing disbursing orders to replace some of things they lost," said Peters, who expects to be gone a minimum of three weeks.
   Members of the Nueces County Salvation Army were at a disaster preparedness conference in Dallas when the tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma and Kansas. Volunteers, including commanding officer Maj. Ernest Branscum, left for the scene of the disaster Tuesday, said Linda Butler, an administrative assistant for The Salvation Army.
   The organization sent 35 mobile feeding units from all over Texas to the disaster area, she said. Branscum was among five of the members from Corpus Christi, she said.
   "I am sure they are up there trying to help assess the damage and give these people some kind of relief," Butler said.
   "At this point we are just taking monetary donations until we get word otherwise," she said. "That money goes straight to that disaster to buy things that are needed in that area."
   Gov. George W. Bush today is scheduled to tour tornado-ravaged DeKalb, the northeast Texas town where half the downtown district was destroyed and 14 people were injured Tuesday, one of them critically.

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Ojilve Sanchez (left) donates $70 as Club 98 office manager Melinda Benavides registers him for a contest.

   DeKalb was the hardest-hit of several communities in northeast Texas, although a 79-year-old woman was killed by a twister in neighboring Titus County.
   Local radio station KLHB-FM 98.3 conducted a fund-raiser from 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Corpus Christi Trade Center. The afternoon show was posted at Kentucky Fried Chicken at Holly and Everhart roads.
   Bob Pena, an afternoon disc jockey for the station, said the show will at be a remote site today until it reaches its goal of raising $9,800.
   "We did the same thing for the flood victims in Del Rio and we had a real good response," Pena said. "Obviously from watching all the footage and pictures in the newspapers, it kind of tugged at us a little bit and we decided to do something."
   The station also was collecting clothing, toys and nonperishable food items, which it will try to haul to the disaster area at by the end of the week, Pena said.
   Staff writer Guy H. Lawrence can be reached at 886-3792 or by e-mail at lawrenceg@caller.com
   

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  © 1999 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.