Countywide : County Volunteers Help Flood Victims

From her hotel room in Bettendorf, Iowa, not far from the overflowing banks of the Mississippi River, Judy Tuohey was thinking of the man crying in the rain.

“He was just standing in the hotel parking lot,” Tuohey, 57, a Laguna Hills resident and volunteer with the American Red Cross, said Wednesday. “It was just from frustration. He was a volunteer and he just couldn’t do any more.”

Tuohey, a registered nurse who is helping staff a disaster mental health clinic, is one of five Red Cross volunteers from Orange County assisting in relief operations in the Midwestern states hit hardest by the flooding. So far, the five locals have joined with 1,800 other Red Cross volunteers from across the country in establishing 76 emergency shelters to house more than 3,000 flood victims, and in providing more than 215,000 meals to people in eight states along the Mississippi River.

Since arriving at the disaster site early last week, the Orange County volunteers have found themselves putting in 10- to 16-hour days to cope with the flood that has claimed 20 lives, covered 8 million acres and caused an estimated $3.5 billion in damage.

And with continuing rainfall exacerbating the situation, some say they will probably stay longer than the two-week commitment the Red Cross requires of its volunteers.

“At first, I thought I was only going to be here a couple weeks,” said Clinton Coil, a 19-year-old college student from Dana Point. “But now, with things as bad as they are, it may be a month or so before I leave.”

Coil, a premed student at UC San Diego, is stationed at an elementary school in Davenport, Iowa, where he helps displaced families obtain food, clothing, medical care and housing. Coil said he has been struck by the pride demonstrated by some of the victims.

“Some families say they just won’t accept charity and that we should give the aid to others who need it more,” Coil said Wednesday by phone. “A lot of my job is telling them it’s OK to ask for help.”

Tuohey, who has volunteered to help in 17 other disasters, including Hurricane Andrew, which devastated south Florida, said such calamities exact a high psychological toll on its victims. It’s important to re-establish the comfort of a routine for disaster victims, she said, especially for children who sometimes exhibit regressive behavior such as thumb-sucking or bed-wetting.

In spite of the flooding, though, some victims have retained their sense of humor, Tuohey said. One Iowa family posted a spray-painted sign on their home that read, “Ark for Sale.”

The other Orange County Red Cross volunteers in the Midwest are Emily Adams, a social worker from Irvine; Bob Morrison, a retiree from Santa Ana, and George Nicholas, a telephone maintenance worker from Lake Forest.

For donation information, call the Orange County Red Cross at (714) 835-5381.