Tracy Press

In case of emergency, Tracy's own Red Cross.

A new study warns of devastating damage to the Bay Area from a major earthquake on the Hayward Fault. The next Big One, bigger than Loma Prieta in 1989, is expected any time now, and the experts say it will be our own Hurricane Katrina.

That makes the opening of the American Red Cross satellite office in Tracy last week an even more welcome sight.

We’ve long heard that Tracy would become beachfront property if something catastrophic were to happen to the west of us. And with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the north and east, we’re aware of how vulnerable we’d be if a levee were to break.

Disaster strikes more commonly in our neighborhoods, of course, and many families who have been fractured by fire know how much it means when volunteers arrive to offer shelter, blankets, medical supplies, food and even counseling.

Earlier this year, two children were severely burned and a teenager died in a fire in northern Tracy, and the San Joaquin County Red Cross chapter helped transport the family to the burn unit in Sacramento. 

But with the agency in Stockton, the help hasn’t been as prompt as it could be, as Tracy Fire Department Chief Chris Bosch has seen. Soon after he arrived in town from Kansas City in 2005, he was surprised that the Red Cross needed three or four hours to respond to fire victims here. His crews called the Red Cross, which called its volunteers in Tracy, who then had to drive to Stockton to get supplies and drive back to Tracy.

That wasn’t the kind of close cooperation Bosch was used to in Kansas City.

Now, 2½ years later, he’s a director on the county Red Cross board, and the first satellite office in the county has found a home in the Tracy Fire Department’s refurbished downtown administration building.

The office is open Tuesdays and Thursdays and is staffed by David Lou and Theresa Hill, two AmericiCorps/VISTA volunteers. They’re working to attract more volunteers and will offer training every first Thursday of the month at the Tracy office. The next CPR class in Tracy will be May 31.

Hill, like Bosch and so many others, is driven to serve.

“Disaster is always on our minds,” she said. “It’s not if, but when, it will happen. We have to be prepared to take care of all those people, to be the first line of defense.”

So the call has gone out for local volunteers to be trained to save lives and care for survivors in emergencies.

We hope Tracy residents respond in droves.

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written by amy , March 27, 2008

Any chance the sesimologist can give us advanced warning.. thermal sensors of heat from pressure build up viewed by the satellite?