Red Cross Shelter Overflows With San Diego’s Generosity

For the last three days San Diego residents have swamped a United Methodist church in Normal Heights with carload after carload of clothes, canned food, fresh fruit, toys and telephones.

But the donated items intended for families who lost their homes Sunday in the worst fire in San Diego history keep piling up in two back rooms and a hallway at the Red Cross emergency center.

The huge outpouring of community support has reached only 15 fire victims, because Red Cross officials have been unable to locate the remaining 75 families whose homes were destroyed or seriously damaged.

“It’s just really gratifying to hear of all the calls and all the organizations that want to help,” said Councilwoman Gloria McColl, whose district includes the devastated Normal Heights neighborhood. “But if we can’t find the people, we’re kind of not able to reach out like we should.”

“It’s frustrating,” said Pat Sutton, a Red Cross disaster specialist. “We have fantastic resources available. It’s sad that we can’t make use of them.”

By Monday night, Red Cross officials had received so much clothing and food that they posted a sign in front of the church that said, “Please No More Donations!”

Volunteers spent all day Tuesday explaining to people that their contributions were no longer needed.

“We have no place to put these things,” Sutton said. “We just can’t do it. There isn’t any more room, not even for a shoe.”

Despite heavy media coverage and door-to-door searches, officials who are accustomed to delivering goods to disaster victims said that elderly Normal Heights residents who lost their homes are proving to be an extraordinarily elusive group.

“The people I guess aren’t watching the news,” said Pam Gothberg, volunteer coordinator for the city’s Office of Emergency Management. “They have other things on their minds . . . They haven’t accepted the reality that their houses are gone. It’s going to take three, four, five days to sink in.”

McColl portrayed many of the elderly residents who lost their homes as independent people who are not accustomed to taking handouts.

“This is where we have to get the word out that there are a lot of things available,” said McColl, who is planning daily media briefings to publicize new services for fire victims.

Dan Conway, public information officer for the San Diego Housing Commission, said it is not unusual for victims of natural disasters to go into hiding. He said that many of the residents who were hard hit by the Coalinga earthquake were not found until two weeks after the devastating temblor.

“I think in any disaster type of situation a lot of loose ends are not tied together,” Conway said. “Some people have complete fire insurance and probably don’t need a lot of help.”

Of the 15 residents who have registered with the Red Cross, Sutton said, several appeared confused and disoriented.

“The older people we have seen don’t know what to say or how to say anything,” Sutton said. “They are not able to communicate. It’s mind-boggling right now.”

The inability of the Red Cross to contact victims was discussed Tuesday at a meeting of city housing authorities, state emergency officials, real estate agents and apartment owners.

“People are in a state of shock,” said Marshall Ward, a director of the San Diego Board of Realtors and a community activist in Normal Heights. “So many old people came in (after being evacuated) . . . but then they walked off without telling anyone where they were going.”

Ward said that a door-to-door search of the disaster area by volunteers has not turned up many families because few people knew the names of their neighbors.

“The thing we don’t know is how many of the displaced people will be able to afford rentals,” Ward said. “I have a feeling a great number of them won’t be able to pay anything.”

McColl said her biggest concern is that many of the elderly residents who were burned out of their homes were on fixed incomes and did not keep insurance policies after they paid off their mortgages.

City housing officials said they plan to run a case by case analysis to meet the temporary shelter needs of victims.

“Right at this moment their needs are being taken care of (by friends and relatives),” McColl said. “But this isn’t something that’s going to end tomorrow. We’ll be in this process for at least another year until that neighborhood is all put back together again.”

In addition to services available through the city and the Red Cross, the Lafayette and Town and Country hotels have offered free rooms to fire victims and the Frank Lincoln Mercury-Toyota dealership in National City has donated the use of 30 rental cars.

Jim Webb, new car sales manager at Frank Lincoln Mercury, said that since he made the offer Monday he has had trouble contacting any fire victims.

“We called the mayor’s office, police and fire officials, the Methodist church plus Channel 8 and 10 to see if we could get any kind of a list,” Webb said. “We have 20 cars sitting here full of gas ready for people to go.”

Although 18 cars were destroyed in Sunday’s fire, on Tuesday Webb had not issued a single car to a fire victim.