Red Cross volunteer weathers busy winter

It was just before 2 a.m. when Mary Noll's cellphone rang to the tune of the Beatles' "Help!" - and the 60-year-old Lower Gwynedd woman knew she was needed urgently.

In nearby Norristown, firefighters were battling a four-alarm fire at an apartment complex. Noll, a volunteer disaster response captain for the Red Cross in eastern Montgomery County, began making calls to assemble her team for the night.

Starting early that morning and working throughout the day, 10 volunteers and four Red Cross staffers gathered food and medical supplies, set up a shelter for evacuees at a high school, provided counseling, and eventually found hotel rooms for those still displaced the next night.

The blaze, which killed one woman and left 15 people in need of shelter, was the latest disaster in what Noll said has been one of the busiest winters in her 10 years of volunteering for the Red Cross.

According to the numbers provided by the Red Cross, volunteers and staff have responded to 300 emergencies within the five counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania in November, December, and January, compared with 280 responses in the same months last year.

By the first week of December, the Red Cross reported that its full-time shelter in Philadelphia had been full for 10 days due to a series of house fires in the city.

Before the deadly fire in Norristown, apartment fires in Whitemarsh and Cheltenham in January kept suburban volunteers busy finding shelter for dozens of displaced persons.

"It got to be a lot of work, a lot of hours," Noll said. "I needed sleep."

Nationwide, the number of fires tends to tick upward every year beginning in November as people use more energy to heat their homes. The busy fire season does not subside until March, Noll said, and the Red Cross has only a month or two to prepare for the summer storm season.

"They know those calls are going to come in at all hours of the day or night, and they drop everything," Noll said of the nearly 125 volunteers she coordinates.

When responses become more frequent, or when their dealings with a tragedy become particularly trying, Noll said volunteers are encouraged to take days off or make use of the same mental and spiritual health services provided to victims of disasters.

"We're no good to anybody else if we're not taking care of ourselves," Noll said.

Even her bosses told her recently to take a breather, she said.

After a fire ripped through several homes in Southwest Philadelphia, killing four children last Fourth of July weekend, Noll remembers getting the call at 4 a.m. to assist the families. She said she and her volunteers remained in touch to help bury the victims more than a month later.

"It's part of the healing process for us," Noll said of personal commitments she and her volunteers often make with those they assist.

Noll's service with the Red Cross began in 2005, when she said she got her "feet wet, literally and figuratively," serving meals out of an emergency response vehicle to flood victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Noll recalled that the responsibility of her work in New Orleans was "life-changing."

"If we didn't see each person every day, they didn't eat, and they had no water," Noll said.

After retiring from her career as a dental hygienist in April, Noll said she had more time to give to the Red Cross and volunteered to become a disaster response captain in eastern Montgomery County. Noll is not the only volunteer in her family; her husband, Peter, is active with Manna on Main Street, a food distribution organization, in Lansdale, and her son, Christopher, is a volunteer firefighter in Wissahickon.

Renee Cardwell Hughes, the CEO of the Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania, called the volunteer team that serves Montgomery County "highly experienced," and capable of handling this year's high number of disaster responses.

"These are people who are so dedicated and so passionate that come out to help their neighbors," Hughes said.

By taking over the recovery process, Norristown Fire Chief Thomas O'Donnell said, the efforts of Red Cross volunteers allow first responders to focus at the emergency at hand.

"They are truly an organization of unsung heros," O'Donnell said.

280

emergency responses by the Red Cross in the five counties of Southeastern Pennsylvania from November 2013 to January 2014.

380

families assisted during those responses.

1,103

individuals assisted.

300

emergency responses from November 2014 to January 2015

420

families assisted.

1,225

individuals assisted.

SOURCE: Red CrossEndText