Groups Unify Mexico Relief Efforts

Los Angeles relief organizations Wednesday announced a coordinated plan to get medicine, building supplies and food to Mexico where rescue workers were still assessing the devastation left by Hurricane Gilbert.

“It is a very serious disaster. We are hoping for the generosity of many people,” said Romeo Flores Caballero, Mexico’s consul general, during a press conference at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.

While Flores noted that figures are still hard to come by, he said preliminary information from relief workers shows that at least 200 died in the storm, another three-quarters of a million people were left homeless and more than $500 million in damage was incurred.

American Red Cross officials, who had already started funneling aid to Jamaica and Gulf Coast states hit by the hurricane, said that until this week relief efforts had been hampered by impassable roads and damage to communications equipment.

Pat Snyder, Red Cross national chairwoman, said Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula was especially hard hit by the hurricane, including the states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. In Monterrey, more than 100 deaths were reported when four buses were swept away by floodwaters.

“In some areas, high winds damaged homes, but in Mexico, torrential rains and floods swept entire towns away,” Snyder said. “There is no way for survivors to pick through the ruins and retrieve some of their goods, because everything is gone.”

Also spearheading the Los Angeles effort to provide disaster aid are Operation California, a charity group that collects supplies and arranges airlifts during disasters, and Comite Beneficencia Mexicana, a nonprofit group that aids the Mexican community.

Officials discouraged donors from providing small amounts of items, such as canned foods and blankets, noting that the damage is so great that cash donations are needed to buy large quantities of relief supplies, which can be shipped more economically and are easier to distribute. They are hoping that large wholesalers and others will donate large amounts of items such as milk, medicine, roofing and other construction materials, blankets, sleeping bags, and generators.

Operation California has arranged to send the supplies by way of Mexicana Airlines, but is hoping that someone will donate use of a plane so that large amounts of goods can be sent.

The Red Cross is also accepting inquiries for those wishing to send money to their immediate family members in Mexico and Jamaica.

Checks earmarked “Hurricane Gilbert Relief” can be sent to the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Red Cross, 2700 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 90057. Checks may also be sent to “Mexican Relief” in care of Operation California, 7615 1/2 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles 90046. Supplies may be dropped off at the Comite Beneficencia Mexicana warehouse, 2900 Euclid Square in Boyle Heights.