Tsunami disaster draws Alaskans to offer help in Thailand
RELIEF HELP: Firefighters, Air Guard officer will go Saturday; others volunteer.
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By MEGAN HOLLAND
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: December 31, 2004)
Anchorage firefighters and an Air National Guard major will travel to Thailand on Saturday to assist in the relief efforts, working under the Thai air force. They plan to spend nine days in Phuket, one of the worst-hit beaches in southern Thailand, said Anchorage Fire Department battalion chief Mark Hall.
The seven are among Alaskans from around the state who are rushing to offer their help to victims of Sunday's earthquake-tsunami disaster, which killed more than 100,000 people across 11 nations in southern Asia and East Africa. Alaskans are opening their wallets and writing checks and asking to volunteer in whatever way they can.
"There's a feeling of generosity and empathy," said Mike Smith, an official with the American Red Cross of Alaska. "It's much like the immediate post-9/11 phase, when people were facing something so horrific they just had to do something."
The firefighters and guardsman from Anchorage will offer aid in whatever form the Thai government directs, Hall said.
"We all know that we are going to help, whatever small amount of a difference it may be," said fire captain Allan Kara, who is also going.
"I just think we should do more than other states because we are closer to it. We've had this happen before; we know what it's like," said Dimond Center owner Joe Ashlock, referring to Alaska's 1964 earthquake and tsunami. Ashlock vowed to match with personal funds up to $10,000 of the donations received at the mall. His company itself is also matching funds.
The American Red Cross of Alaska said the last time it saw such an outpouring of support was Sept. 11, 2001. Smith said that in the organization's history, they have never seen such a response to an international event.
"We've gotten hundreds of calls and e-mails from individuals -- everything from divers, physicians and pilots," he said. "But we don't have the mechanism to support them." The best thing, he said, is to donate money.
For the firefighters planning on traveling to Thailand, the trip offers a chance to help.
When the men arrive, they will see a level of destruction none has ever witnessed before -- even in their combined decades of firefighting.
"We are going to see a lot of bad things," firefighter Reno Romero said. "Well, we see that every day."
"This is what we do for a living," Kara said. "It's kind of the basic core values of who we are as firemen."
The scale of what they will see, though, will be different. The hardest to deal with, Romero predicted, will be passing by all the people they won't be able to help.
"I don't know that anybody could be prepared for this," Kara said. "But I feel like we are it."
Hall said that many more firefighters than are making the trip volunteered for the job.
As of Thursday night, the firefighters had raised more than $10,000 from friends, family, colleagues and strangers to fund the trip, and the men have received the full support of the city, Hall said.
Maj. Russell C. Wilmot III of the Air National Guard will join the firefighters. Maj. Mike Haller, spokesman for the Guard, said Wilmot is familiar with the Thai military and speaks Thai, so he will be able to offer the firefighters the necessary coordination to ensure their skills are properly used.
For others in Alaska, the desire to offer aid is personal. The chief executive officer of the Seldovia Native Corp., Mike Beal, was on Phuket beach just 12 hours before the first wave hit. He found out what had happened when he got off his plane in Anchorage. As manager of the Dimond Center Hotel, he is offering free hotel vouchers for the first 20 people who donate more than $200 to the Dimond Center fund drive.
"God was looking after me," Beal said. "I was going to be right in its path when it happened." Instead, he now watches images on CNN of his destroyed hotel and crushed bungalows. He even matches up what he thinks was his bungalow -- with cars and boats smashed against the concrete.
"I just feel so sorry, especially for the lower-rung Thai people," he said. "They have such a hard time feeding themselves every day when life is good. I don't know how they are going to cope now."
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was among those advocating for development of a tsunami warning system in the affected region, a system similar to the West Coast-Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer that was created after Alaska's 9.2 magnitude earthquake in 1964.
"Alaskans fully understand the devastation and loss that earthquakes and resulting tsunamis can cause," Murkowski said. "Given this tragedy, there is no reason why warning networks can't be established to protect both America's East Coast and also more dangerous areas, like the Indian Ocean."
Daily News reporter Megan Holland can be reached at mrholland@adn.com. The Associated Press contributed to this story. |
