Local Red Cross Volunteers Help Out In Louisiana, California

Close to 30 Red Cross volunteers from Oregon and Southwest Washington have shipped out to Louisiana and California to help with the aftermath of flooding in the Gulf states and wind-whipped wildfires in California. Volunteers from Longview and Vancouver, and from Bend, Tigard, Monmouth, Wood Village, Medford, Silverton, Florence, Salem, Portland, Lake Oswego, Wolf Creek, Keiser, Williams, and Turner, in Oregon were working in the two locations. Longview’s Julie Bishop, who volunteers with the Red Cross’ Vancouver office, was helping manage a shelter for Red Cross volunteers when she arrived in Baton Rouge, La., Tuesday. More than 2,600 total Red Cross volunteers had been sent to Louisiana, the organization said Friday. At the flooding’s peak, more than 50 Red Cross and community shelters were set up to lodge the displaced. “Just driving in here from the airport, you could see the destruction,” she said, saying she had yet to see much outside the shelter.