By Scott Cousins

Granite City Press-Record and St. Clair County Journal

September 7, 2008 and September 10, 2008

 

Most people would try to head out of trouble, but Mike Wood and Larry Boyer were heading toward it.

 

Wood, of Granite City, and Boyer, of O'Fallon, MO., are American Red Cross volunteers who were taking an emergency response vehicle, or ERV, from Shreveport, La., to Baton Rouge, La., as part of the relief effort for Hurricane Gustav. They were among seven Red Cross volunteers from the St. Louis area heading south.

 

On Wednesday afternoon, the two were a few hours from Baton Rouge. There was no rain, but going had been slow because of frequent accidents, and they had just stopped for another one.

 

The two had been in Baton Rouge over the weekend before the hurricane made landfall Monday.

 

"It was pretty hairy at times," Wood said in a telephone interview. "When we're in the truck, the truck rocks pretty good. And there was stuff blowing all over the place."

 

They had been sent back to Shreveport to work in a Red Cross warehouse, then sent back to Baton Rouge Wednesday.

 

"Now they need more people down here because of the damage, so we're heading down," he said.

 

The ERVs serve as mobile feeding stations. Working with centralized kitchens, they load up food and can provide hot meals to about 600 people at a time.

 

"We just start feeding out the side of the window," Wood said.

 

He expects to be there until mid-September.

 

Although he has been busy, Wood said this trip was one of the "smoother" ones he's been on.

 

"It's rather nice, really," he said.

 

Three weeks ago he was in Texas for Hurricane Dolly.

 

"We were stationed out of Brownsville," he said. "We were feeding 27,000 people a day (out of eight ERVs). They line up pretty quick."

 

He had also spent some time earlier in the year doing disaster relief during flooding on the Mississippi River.

 

Wood became interested in disaster relief through his work with the Girl Scouts.

 

"I raised five daughters," he said. "I had to take CPR so I could take them anywhere."

 

He became a CPR instructor, branched out to other areas such as personal rescue and basic aid training, then started going out on disaster relief work.

 

"My favorite thing is the schools, I like dealing with the kids," he said.

 

One of the programs he does is Youthcorps, which teaches teenagers how to teach younger children basic first aid and hygiene, such as proper hand washing.

 

"We get the kids involved and hopefully when they get older they become volunteers," Wood said.

 

"People don't realize that there is a lot of opportunity to volunteer with the Red Cross," he said. "You meet a lot of neat people, and it makes you appreciate what you've got definately."

 

A retired truck driver, Wood said he wouldn't be able to do what he does without help from his wife, Sandy.

 

"I couldn't ask for a better wife to allow me to do what I have to do."

 

"He has a good heart," said Sandy Wood. "He loves helping people. It's hard on the family when he's gone, but we know he's helping others and that's important."