Couple Join Flood Aid Mission

A Camarillo couple who volunteer for the local chapter of the American Red Cross left Ventura County early Tuesday to drive a Red Cross truck across the country to help Midwest flood victims.

Jerry Wong, an employee at Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station, and his wife, Gwen, a homemaker, left at 4 a.m. in a truck belonging to the Ventura County chapter of the relief agency.

Bound for St. Louis, the Wongs are part of a caravan of five Red Cross trucks from across Southern California that are on their way to help victims in the flood-ravaged heartland.

Brian Bolton, executive director of the local Red Cross said the Wongs will stay in the Midwest for three weeks volunteering for the agency.

While at the disaster scene, the couple will probably be assigned to drive Ventura County’s Red Cross truck, using it as a mobile feeding van for flood victims, Bolton said.

“They will be feeding people working on their levees, people working on their homes,” he said.

The local Red Cross chapter has already sent one staff worker--Mike Goth, director of emergency services--to the disaster, Bolton said.

And Bolton spent most of Tuesday arranging to send another five county residents to the Midwest to volunteer with the national Red Cross to help flood victims.

Already, about 9,000 Red Cross staff workers and volunteers are on the scene helping people who have lost their homes or otherwise been harmed by the overflowing rivers, he said.

Besides helping flood victims, the local Red Cross chapter’s efforts to aid in the disaster may ultimately benefit Ventura County residents, Bolton said.

“When (a disaster) happens here, our people will be much more trained and able to deal with it,” he said.