Wednesday, May 5, 1999
Local groups aid tornado effort
By JERRY DANIEL REED
Senior Staff Writer
Abilene residents flocked to an Abilene television station
Tuesday to load a Salvation Army truck full of necessities for
the devastated victims of a massive tornado in the Oklahoma City
area.
KRBC-TV started promoting the collection of food and household
articles at noon, and by 4 p.m. the truck was mostly filled. Many
donors also left cash for the disaster victims, said KRBC news
director Toby Dagenhart.
Meanwhile, local American Red Cross volunteers stood by for
an expected summons to speed to the site of the calamity, one
of the most powerful and deadliest in modern times.
“We drafted our whole news crew, and some of the other
people in the station,’’ Dagenhart said. KRBC staffers,
including news anchor Downing Bolls, ferried boxes and sacks of
goods from open car windows to the back of the nearby Salvation
Army truck parked on the station’s drive-through parking
lot.
The station’s program staff promoted the drive with bottom-screen
crawler messages, brief cut-ins and 30-second promotional spots.
KEAN Radio started broadcasting from the KRBC parking lot, plugging
the drive about every 15 mintues. Q100 Radio also promoted the
drive.
“We’ve gotten a lot of cash,’’ Dagenhart
said. “And the stack of twenties is much, much taller than
the stacks of ones. It’s been amazing.’’
Salvation Army truck driver Herman Hartwick said he was preparing
to head north either late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Dagenhart
said an encore performance was possible, though not certain, today.
Sundry articles besides food included toothpaste, bottled water,
toilet paper, deodorant, soap and blankets. One woman wheeled
a shopping cart with her donations, from Albertson’s several
hundred feet away on South 14th.
At Red Cross headquarters, disaster director Joan Kinter put
together a roster of prospective volunteers for the Houston office
to comb through to put together relief teams in Oklahoma City.
Mental health nurse Fran Barrett, retired from a professional
career with the Red Cross, said she expected to get the call,
though she may not be able to leave before Thursday or Friday.
She may be needed as long as three weeks to help the injured,
other survivors, and even some volunteers, deal with the trauma
they’ve encountered, or will encounter.
“Oftentimes we have individuals who are on their first
operation, and as a result, oftentimes they are not emotionally
prepared, although they have been trained adequately trained.
“There is no way you can adequately prepare an individual
emotionally for what they’re going to run into, especially
on an operation of this magnitude,’’ Barrett explained.
Workers often respond with tears, and sometimes by emotional
withdrawal, she said.
“They need to talk about what they go through,’’
she said. “We often talk about, it takes time, it takes tears.
You’ve got to trust someone with your emotions, and you’ve
got to talk about it.’’
Children are often “the forgotten grievers’’
because they are not as articulate as adults, she said.
They need to ventilate their feelings, but in a disaster they
often lose the full attention of their own parents at the precise
time they need them most.
“So the children wind up getting shuffled to one side
while the parents see about getting some place to stay, getting
repairs to the house, getting a family member buried, maybe. So
it’s very important for mental health people to be there
for children.’’
It’s also possible that the Big Country Red Cross chapter
will be asked for an emergency response vehicle driver. No ERV
is currently based in Abilene, so the ERV driver would pick up
a vehicle fully stocked with relief supplies at Red Cross headquarters
in either Midland or Lubbock said Kinter.
The Red Cross can’t transport donated supplies to Oklahoma
City, due to the cost and lack of transportation, but always has
need of cash contributions, Kinter reminded. And it can always
use more volunteers willing to train to respond to devastation
such as struck Oklahoma City and suburbs Monday night.
This morning KTXS-TV was to open another collection site for
articles to be given to the Oklahoma tornado victims, at 2525
S. Danville.
 |
| Herman Hartwich loads jugs
of water donated by Abilenians Tuesday afternoon into the back
of a Salvation Army truck at KRBC-TV’s parking lot to send
to Oklahoma tornado victims. KRBC, KEAN Radio and the Salvation
Army organized the dropoff for nonperishable items, monetary
donations and other relief materials. Companies and concerned
citizens helped fill the large moving van. Hartwick, who usually
drives the truck around town to pick up donations, will drive
the truck to Oklahoma. Photo by Steve Hebert/ Reporter-News |
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Copyright ©1999,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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