Cortlandt Manor Woman Heading to Oklahoma as Red Cross Volunteer

Claire Herzberg is heading to tornado-stricken Oklahoma as a volunteer with the Red Cross. She knows it will be emotionally draining and physically tiring.

But she also knows how gratifying it will be.

"My goal is to be as helpful as I can to people who are often at the lowest point in their lives," the retired psychiatric worker said. This is her third national deployment with the Red Cross; she offered her skills in mental health support in Alabama following the Tuscaloosa tornadoes, and Texas after Hurricane Ike. 

Herzberg, 64, flies out of LaGuardia Airport in Flushing Thursday afternoon. Over the next week or so she'll be interacting with those who were affected by the May 20 tornado. She doesn't know where she'll be staying yet, but it will likely be a shelter, where she could be sleeping next to folks whose homes were destroyed.

"We basically interact with whomever seems to need emotional support," Herzberg said, adding that, sometimes, that means other Red Cross volunteers. 
"We work 12 hour shifts. You're on your feet a great deal."

Still, Herberg says the work isn't "hard because it's something I really want to do." Helping others, like a middle-aged man who "barely survived" the tornadoes in Tuscaloosa, is something she's looking forward to.

"He was like hanging on to some kind of support beam in his house as the tornado went by," she said. "And he was having horrible, horrible nightmares and not sharing them with his wife, not wanting to upset her. I talked to him for well over an hour."

That conversation included tips on how to "prepare for sleep," so that the nightmares would diminish, Herzberg recalled. She also encouraged the man to confide in his wife, and the head of his church. When she encountered the man again, he told her his sleep had improved.

Another memorable conversation is one Herzberg had with another Red Cross Volunteer in Texas. The woman had become a volunteer after she experienced a hurricane that took "everything."

"She talked about how the first year or two was really hard, but you really do find your equilibrium, and sometimes you end up in better place," she said. That's a story Herzberg shares with the traumatized folks she encounters.

Herzberg encourages community members to become volunteers with the Red Cross. The organization also provides relief for folks affected by tragedies in this area. In her eight years experience as a volunteer, she's responded to apartment fires and other local tragedies.

"There's a real need for it," she said.