Area Red Cross sends three to aid in wildfire relief efforts

Three Southeast Missouri volunteers are in Southern California today, helping deliver Red Cross aid to those affected by massive wildfires.

Cape Girardeau Red Cross spokeswoman Kessie Hinkle said the volunteers are Steve Stacy, a licensed counselor from Poplar Bluff; Dottie Lashley of Cape Gir?ardeau County; and Cindy Underwood of Cape Girardeau.

Stacy, a Red Cross volunteer since 1999, served victims of Hurricane Katrina and Sept. 11. He also teaches Red Cross classes on disaster mental health and psychological first aid.

Lashley is a longtime Red Cross volunteer who managed post-Katrina shelters and did flood relief in Coffeyville, Kan. Underwood, a grandmother of five, first volunteered for Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina. She said she will spend up to three weeks in California, keeping local police and fire officials linked to information from Red Cross, FEMA and state government offices.

Hinkle said two more Red Cross volunteers are prepared to fly out Sunday if they are needed.

Underwood has cleaned toilets, learned to drive emergency food relief trucks and been a caseworker. She said working for California's fire victims is worth missing Halloween with her grandchildren. She compares it to mission work, which "makes me feel whole" but is impossible without the support of family and friends.

"Your heart has to be touched to the point where you're ready to pack your bag and go," she said.

Firefighters, too, are on alert.

"We are always ready," said Rob Barth of the Mingo Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center in Puxico, Mo. He said his crews are assigned from the Missouri-Iowa Interagency Dispatch Center based in Rolla, Mo., in the Mark Twain National Forest.

Dave Mosher manages the Missouri-Iowa Dispatch Center. He can send as many as eight firefighters from the Rolla area, and up to three trucks, if needed. So far this year, Mosher said, he's sent 13 Missouri crews "all over the western United States -- Idaho, Montana and California."

Chris Peterson, fire management officer at the Shawnee National Forest in Illinois, said he's prepared to send three to seven firefighters and a truck used to spray fire-retardant foam. Peterson checks into an Internet chat room at www.wildlandfire.com to get the latest fire reports.

Donations to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund can be sent to American Red Cross chapter at 2430 Myra Drive Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63701; made online at www.semoredcross.org or arranged by calling 335-9471.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127