
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 12, 1995                   TAG: 9507120059
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FLOOD ASSISTANCE PUTS RED CROSS IN THE RED

The Roanoke Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross is asking the community to help it recoup nearly $100,000 in assistance it has provided for victims of this summer's flooding.

The national Red Cross has encouraged chapters in flooded regions of Virginia to recover an estimated $1.9 million spent on flood assistance - $100,000 of it in the Roanoke Valley.

The flooding - which the Red Cross declared a Level 4 disaster on its scale of five levels - "was beyond the scope of the chapter's budget," Terri Jones, director of communications, said Tuesday. The chapter's disaster relief budget does not anticipate disasters of the magnitude of recent flooding, she said.

"We budget for things like single-family home fires or multiple-family home fires," she said. "There are approximately 80 of them in any given year. These are relief efforts the Red Cross has on a day-to-day basis. These things we can budget for."

The chapter helped flood victims by:

Paying for motel rooms.

Providing clothing, household furnishings, prescriptions and groceries.

Replacing employment-related tools.

Paying rental property deposits.

"We provide all kinds of emergency needs to get people back on the road to a normal life," Jones said.

Most of the people helped by the Roanoke Valley Red Cross lived in the Garden City area in Roanoke and the Mason Creek area in Salem, Jones said. Others "were more individualized, where small streams rose up and flooded small homes," she said.

The United Way of Roanoke Valley's board of directors voted Tuesday to open the fund-raising effort with a $1,000 contribution.

Jones said 93 cents of every dollar donated to the relief fund will be used for goods and services. The rest will cover administrative costs.

Nearly 500 volunteers from Red Cross chapters in and out of state helped with disaster relief efforts in 17 counties and three cities in Virginia and one county in West Virginia. About 180 of those volunteers were from outside the state.

Jim Haggerty, state disaster field specialist for the Red Cross, said the organization turned to out-of-state volunteers when not enough in-state volunteers with specific disaster-service experience were available.

"Sometimes you have to go out of state and across the country to find people to do the job for you," he said.

The Roanoke Valley Red Cross serves Roanoke, Salem, Vinton, and Roanoke, Botetourt and Craig counties.

by CNB