Description |
The Weber County Chapter of the Red Cross began in December 1915 when a small group of individuals gathered to begin organizing a chapter of the Red Cross. In 1962, the name was changed to the Bonneville chapter, and in 1969, the chapter merged with other chapters in Northern Utah to become the Northern Utah Chapter, with its headquarters located in Ogden, Utah. The scrapbooks range from 1940 to 2003 and highlight some of the important work of the Red Cross. The books include photographs, newspaper clippings, and other materials. |
OCR Text |
Show DISASTER SERVICES mental agencies, the Red Cross, and local groups responded magnificently. When surging crests smashed through and over levees at places like Topeka and Manhattan and Kansas City, help was ready and waiting. At Kansas City, Kansas, Chapter Chairman John Ziegelmeyer headed a three-man motorboat rescue squad that saved the lives of more than a score of persons trapped in their homes by up¬wards of 20 feet of rushing water. Dozens more were saved by rescue teams from the adjoining chapter at Kansas City, Missouri. When huge flood-borne oil tanks collided and exploded at Kansas City, Missouri, resulting fires ravaged the heart of the city's central industrial area. Red Cross first aid stations treated burned and injured firemen. That's the way the Red Cross story ran in town after town during the emergency period as crests of the flooding rivers smashed eastward from Central Kansas to St. Louis. For the growing numbers of homeless the Red Cross began setting up shelters and feeding points. At the peak of the operation, 85 Red Cross shelters were in operation, 14,200 persons were being housed, and 18,000 fed. Then, as the muddy waters began to drain from silt-covered homes and streets and towns, began the biggest job of the Red Cross—the slow, tedious cleaning, rebuilding and repairing of homes, and of refurnishing them once they were again livable. Taking part in the vast pro¬gram were 495 paid disaster specialists and thousands of volunteers. By early autumn the Red Cross had spent $6,500,000 for flood relief. Such aid was in out- 12 DISASTER SERVICES ight grants, not loans. Disaster Services officials estimated total cost of the operation at approxi¬mately $13 million. That would make it the fourth costliest domestic relief operation in Red Cross history. The disastrous July floods topped off a year in which the Red Cross gave aid to more than 300,000 persons in 300 domestic disaster relief operations. These disasters consisted of 3 hurri¬canes, 36 tornadoes, 14 other storms, 65 floods, 158 fires, and 27 miscellaneous types such as explosions and train wrecks. The catastrophes destroyed 13,100 buildings, damaged 172,600, and killed 500 persons. Throughout the year the Red Cross maintained its program of assistance to the national civil defense effort. Such aid included making surveys of emergency feeding and housing facilities in likely "target areas" and helping in training programs for first aid and home nursing. ANSWER THEIR CALL An elderly couple stand silently in the cold rain and watch their hard-earned home and everything they own wash away in muddy flood water. A young bride bursts into tears as she vainly tries to wash six inches of river slime from her new furniture. A child sobs from cold and hunger as his parents work desperately to salvage precious possessions from their wrecked house. Through your help— the Red Cross can answer their call. 13 |