SALEM LAKES — The American Red Cross opened a full-service shelter at Salem Grade School for Kenosha County residents affected by last week’s flooding.
The 24-hour emergency shelter 24 hours provides cleanup kits, food, bottled water and overnight sleeping quarters, according to volunteers.
The cleanup kits include, a bucket, mop, broom, sturdy gloves, bleach, Pine-Sol and a filtering mask, among other items.
They have sandwiches and snacks and water supplies and whatever people need to clean up.
Jane Nesbitt, a registered nurse and Red Cross volunteer, emphasized the showers available, noting the large number of people who picked up cleaning supplies at the Red Cross site in Silver Lake.
“They’ve been in dirty water for two days,” she said.
Nesbitt said case workers and mental health professionals specializing in disaster health will be available.
Nesbitt said Red Cross volunteers have been out in the community assisting residents as well.
“As they go out, they find more spots that are affected,” she said. “People are so proud as far as the don’t want to come” to a shelter. “I know one gentleman slept in his car. Or, if their upstairs isn’t affected, they’ll sleep in the upstairs of their house.”
But when victims see the cleanup kits, they immediately take them.
“I tell them, spread the word, that’s why we’re here,” she said.Nancy Lunsford whose home is surrounded by water that has yet to seep into the main living area, picked up a cleanup kit. But she was also interested in well kits that test for water contamination. Those kits are available at the former Silver Lake Village Hall, 113 S. First St.
“I’m like dangling till the carpet’s gone and the drywall is soaked,” said Lunsford, a resident of Camp Lake. “It’s swelling around me. … Right now, there’s not a distinction between lake and house.”
