Southland Opens Its Heart to Aid Victims of Guadalajara Blasts

On the morning of April 22, Arcelia McAllister listened to her radio and flipped anxiously between TV channels in her Monterey Park home, hoping desperately to hear something--anything--about the devastating gas explosions that tore through her family’s hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico.

“It was a terrible thing for me, because I didn’t know where the explosion was in the city,” said McAllister, whose mother, brothers and son live in Guadalajara. “I was going crazy!”

After hours of sitting by the phone, McAllister received the news that she had been anxiously awaiting: her family was safe. The blasts had ripped apart an area known as Reforma, far across town.

But her son’s description of the scene as “a pit, filled with debris and bodies” disturbed her enough to make her volunteer for local relief efforts for the Guadalajara victims.

Within hours of the disaster, which left more than 200 dead and 1,000 injured, fundraising drives and information lines were set up across Southern California. An estimated 400,000 people with family ties to the state of Jalisco, of which Guadalajara is the capital, make their homes in Los Angeles.

“In the first day we received something in the neighborhood of 4,000 (inquiry) calls,” said Martin Torres of the Mexican General Consulate in Los Angeles. Volunteers at the consulate answered phones, giving out information on how to send aid to Guadalajara and relaying the names of those killed in the explosions.

Consulate volunteers referred those interested in joining relief efforts to several local groups, such as the Federacion de Clubes Jaliscienses and the Comite de Beneficiencia Mexicana.

Ruben Arenas, president of the Federacion de Clubes Jaliscienses, first received word from Guadalajara 45 minutes after the initial explosion. The Jaliscan government “started sending us lists of the injured and dead . . . and two or three hours later we established a fund (for public donations) in the bank,” said Arenas.

McAllister, who is the federation’s treasurer, flew to Guadalajara six days after the explosions to deliver the first check drawn on the fund to a private relief group.

The federation, based in South Gate, oversees social and charitable activities for the 3,500 members of 17 area Jaliscan clubs.

Less than a week after the tragedy, the Comite de Beneficiencia Mexicana in East Los Angeles sent 18 tons of medicine, food, bottled water and other goods to the ravaged city. Volunteers from various Mexican states, as well as other countries, collected the supplies, said Miguel Angel Arenas, the committee’s president.

The group also appealed for needed items through radio station KWKW, he added.

Spanish-language talk radio station KPLS, based in Orange, started a five-day radiothon immediately after receiving news of the disaster. Listeners sent in more than $60,000 in the first three days, station officials said, with funds going to the American Red Cross.

“People started calling to ask not only what we knew, but also how they could help,” said Leo Ramos, general manager of KPLS. “We even had a woman who called and said she was in (kidney) dialysis and would forgo one treatment to donate money.”

Children walked into the station with bags of change, farm workers donated sums as high as $100 and small Latino businesses, such as neighborhood sandwich shops, sent in thousands of dollars, said Ramos.

KMEX-TV also held a telethon in cooperation with the Red Cross, raising more than $160,000. Funds were also collected at last month’s L.A. Fiesta Broadway.

Members of area Catholic churches in Los Angeles joined in the effort, donating money for Guadalajara at Sunday services. Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, called for parishes to continue their support and sent a $10,000 aid check to the archbishop of Guadalajara the day after the disaster.

The explosions, resulting from underground gasoline leaks in the city’s sewer system, blew automobiles to housetops and destroyed more than 1,600 buildings in Guadalajara, which has a population of about 3 million. The Mexican government estimated that about 6,500 people remained homeless by the beginning of this month.