Members of Benicia radio club travel to N.Y. to help Sandy victims

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

As residents of the Northeast struggle against the devastation brought by a series of storms, including “Superstorm” Sandy, they’re being helped in the fight by amateur radio operators from Benicia and other Solano County cities.

John Williams, of Benicia, and Bob Hewitt, of Vacaville, arrived in the Greater New York area Wednesday after driving an emergency response vehicle from Fairfield.

The two are American Red Cross volunteers, and they were called up by that agency and sent to the Northeast to help.

They and other Solano County volunteers aren’t using their amateur (ham) radios to provide communication in this emergency. Instead, they’re delivering food.

“Bob and I are driving the ERVs,” Williams said. “Pat Morales is on a different vehicle. We have others working in different assignments.”

Some other Solano County volunteers arrived earlier — Debbie Yee, Billy White, Bill Wilson, Lee Woods and Alvinia Palin.

And they’re not the only ones from California, Hewitt said. “They’re here from Burlingame, and I just heard Napa called, so Napa’s here.”

“They’re doing other jobs, other than food,” he said.

The two men have driven through darkened neighborhoods where fallen trees have snapped power lines that remain unrepaired.

But Williams and Hewitt are making sure the New York storm victims are getting hot meals.

Those meals, they said, are being cooked by Southern Baptists, who are collaborating with the Red Cross in the relief effort and preparing thousands of meals at a time, every day.

The church volunteers came equipped for the job, Hewitt said.

They hauled in multiple tractor-trailer rigs. Some of the trailers are walk-in freezers, while others are enormous refrigerators.

And some are the ovens in which the meals get cooked.

“I wouldn’t even hazard a guess about how many meals they’ve prepared,” Hewitt said.

This is Williams’s seventh or eighth Red Cross deployment. “It’s the largest I’ve seen,” he said.

“The numbers exceed anything I expected,” he said. “I heard this is second to Hurricane Katrina in scope.”

There are four main sites in the New York area where the ERVs meet to pick up meals and make deliveries. Hewitt said each of those spots has 20 to 30 ERVs in service.

“It’s a very cooperative effort, Hewitt said.

The two haven’t seen all the devastation, first caused by Hurricane Sandy, with worse calamity wrought two days ago by a strong northeastern storm.

New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo has estimated New York’s recovery cost alone to be up to $33 billion. Damage in other states may reach another $20 billion.

“The geographic size is massive. It’s affected a number of states,” Williams said. “It touches your heart.”

Hundreds of thousands remain without electricity.

“This is affecting people who lost power,” Williams said. “We went through neighborhoods where the lines are down. The trees are down, and limbs are down everywhere.”

They’ve seen neighborhoods where residents have piled food along the street. That food spoiled since electricity was lost Oct. 28, the men said.

Snow also is piled high along the streets Hewitt and Williams travel. The streets they drive are clear, but the snow isn’t melting away.

“It’s not bad now,” Williams said. “The roads are clear, and there’s no problem with icy roads. We’re able to get around. We need to be mobile.”

Williams and Hewitt said none of the volunteers in the massive effort is being paid, and said the Red Cross is counting on donations to address the needs of the storm victims. They asked residents back home to keep donating.

Both men learned Pedrotti’s Ace Hardware in Southampton Shopping Center will continue to match any Red Cross donations made at the store through Thanksgiving, even though it exceeded its $10,000 goal by an additional $5,000 a week after announcing the fund drive.

“That’s why I shop there,” Williams said.