Volunteers Serve Baltimore Tornado Victims Dinner
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―This Thanksgiving is bitter sweet for nearly 100 families displaced by a brief, but fierce tornado last week.
Gigi Barnett reports the city and the Red Cross stepped in to give the victims a warm holiday.
Sky Eye Chopper 13 flew over a small stretch of Northeast Baltimore hours after a tornado hit. Three apartment buildings were destroyed by a fast-moving overnight tornado.
There were 85 to 100 mile-per-hour winds that left more than 80 families' homeless days before Thanksgiving.
Now one week and one day later some residents find themselves without a place to live.
"Please feel free to come back for seconds, too," said a volunteer.
A Thanksgiving meal was cooked up by a team of different people. The effort included the Red Cross, city leaders, workers at Wegman's Grocery store and Classic Catering.
For some of the victims, the dinner was just a few feet away from the damage at W.E.B. Dubois High School. It was a constant reminder of what could have been.
"With the projectiles that were flying in the air, I could have been killed. The neighbors I see...no children were killed," said Walter Opher, tornado victim.
Many of the displaced families have already found permanent housing or made repairs, but some of them wanted to attend the dinner, to see other neighbors who survived, too.
"Although I know all of my neighbors, this, I feel, has brought a lot of us a lot closer. We can honestly say on the anniversary that we lived through something together," said Opher.
Help for victims came quickly.
"We do drills routinely all throughout the year for this type of thing. So, it's important that when a real disaster comes that we're ready and coordinated," said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
While the meal is for the residents, volunteers say serving them is a chance to give back.
"There is always time for us to go home...do something as a family," said Bobbi Collins, Red Cross volunteer.
There were about 40 volunteers that helped out for the dinner in Northeast Baltimore.
Sawyer Realty, which owns the properties, has donated $10,000 to a fund that would help the displaced families.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
