O.C. Volunteers Helping the Victims of Fran

Diane Vandenberg knew the call was coming.

Hurricane Fran had pummeled a large swath of the Eastern Seaboard and she is a veteran volunteer for the American Red Cross.

By Sunday afternoon, the 60-year-old Anaheim Hills electronics technician was on a plane.

“You can’t really pay people to do this job, you do it because it makes you feel good to help people in distress,” said Vandenberg, while waiting to board a jet at John Wayne Airport for a flight to the disaster area.

Vandenberg was one of nine members of the Orange County chapter flying to Richmond, Va., to assist in the Red Cross effort. They knew little of what to expect when they arrived, other than what they had seen or read in the news.

High winds and drenching rains unleashed by the hurricane had blocked bridges, swollen rivers and destroyed homes, most recently in the Carolinas and Virginia.

At least 17 people were killed in North Carolina and an estimated 10,000 people had been evacuated from one Virginia county alone.

“Our job will be to do the things the Red Cross always does in disasters: Bring in food and water, help people who have been displaced find shelter,” said Bill Claussen, a 61-year-old Huntington Beach resident on his first volunteer mission.

Unlike Claussen, Vandenberg has flown all over the United States with other Red Cross volunteers during her eight years of service. She has been dispatched to St. Louis, Vancouver, West Virginia and Houston for floods and Alabama for another hurricane.

Before the weekend began, more than 350 Red Cross volunteers from around the country were already at work assisting in the Hurricane Fran aftermath, with another 500 to 600 on standby, said Sarah Shogren, a spokeswoman from Newport Beach.

“Any time that a person has disaster-caused needs, we respond,” said Shogren, who added that her group was also closely watching tropical storm Hortense as it headed into the Caribbean. “It could be shelter, it could be food or clothing or damage assessment.”