Cynthia Quinn remembers walking along a hushed city street. Toppled houses and exposed septic tanks cover the barren landscape. Mountains of sand and uprooted fire hydrants point toward the ashen sky.
In a matter of days, the surrounding neighborhoods had become waterfront property. This was Hurricane Ike; a deadly storm that ravaged Texas, leaving many families homeless or worse. The Emergency Services Director for the American Red Cross of Northeast Mass., Quinn spent three weeks in the Lone Star State assisting with disaster relief operations in Harris and Orange counties.
The Ipswich native was a long way from her Topsfield Road home.
"I lived out of my suitcase and kind of got used to the joke," recalls Quinn, a retired math teacher and former longtime Ipswich School Committee member. "I spent one week living in a tent at Orange County Airport. It was amazing to hear their stories and what they went through when Ike hit. People were helping people, lots of good spirit."
Quinn indeed spent much of her time interacting with the locals. Working in public affairs for the Red Cross, she put together a variety of human-interest stories involving volunteers and storm survivors. These appeared in the newsletters she'd make in the days to come.
At the time of her arrival, headquarters was in the process of being moved from Fort Worth to Clear Lake City, Houston.
"Signs had to be taken down and moved," Quinn says. "While putting them back up in Houston, I became familiar with where everything was located."
She was the sole publicity official out of 80 volunteers.
Part of her assignment included "shadowing" 15 emergency response vehicles, or ERVS, into the town of Orange. Galveston and Bridge City. Bridge City is made up of 80,000 people, much smaller than Essex County, she says.
"These folks needed help," she adds. "Smaller towns like Bridge City faced tidal surges of up to 9 feet. You'd come across these houses you could see right through, 2-by-4's and all, just gutted."
They set up fixed and neighborhood feeding sites for clients. Parking lots of local businesses made up these fixed areas. Quinn also became familiar with bulk distribution trucks and how items were loaded. This included tarps, diapers, comfort/cleanup kits and bug spray.
At this time tap water was deemed undrinkable. Bottles were handed out to families in recovery.
"I saw a lot of people helping each other," Quinn says. "There were a couple of people on our crew who were in Katrina. After three years they've gotten their houses fixed. This was their way of extending their gratitude."
Extensive water damage in Texas resulted in the spread of black mold within households. Quinn saw many health risks in Galveston, where entire streets below the seawall became flooded.
"Streets were all torn up. The water goes right into the Sheetrock in homes. If it's not cleaned right away, people can become sick. Usually one can tell after noticing watermarks."
Buckets and bleach for fighting mildew were also provided to those afflicted.
Three huge tents, each 30-by-60 feet, stood by Galveston Elementary as shelters for about 400 people with no place to go. Quinn added that local media outlets such as The Houston Chronicle sought to speak with many of Red Cross' clients.
"We tried to facilitate this process," Quinn says. "They couldn't come in unless our clients knew beforehand and agreed upon it. But individuals had the ability to go off shelter grounds to be interviewed."
Security checkpoints and entrances prevented any interference at the elementary school.
Many of these tents were taken down as things started to look up.
"A lot of people are trying to transfer over to new living arrangements," Quinn says. "They're closing some of the kitchens in Galveston and are cutting back."
She returned home to Ipswich this past weekend.
"My executive director suggested I go out there," she says. "I saw this as an opportunity for additional growth. It was definitely challenging as well as interesting. I met a great bunch of people."
Quinn says she will especially miss listening to Texans tease her because of her New England accent.
"I had this shirt that said 'Gloucester.' It was amusing watching them try to pronounce it correctly," she says.
This was not Quinn's first experience dealing with disaster aftermaths. Quinn trained a number of volunteers during the time of Hurricane Katrina, sending 62 volunteers to nine different states. Sixty-six evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita moved into the Northeast chapter, seeking new places to live.
Three years ago Quinn was sent to Worcester to aid 400 families when a local river and brook flooded. She and her husband also set up shelter after the factory explosion in a Danvers neighborhood.
"It was just my husband (Dennis) and I along with a volunteer from Boston," she recalls. "We sat there and waited for additional assistance."
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