Sending Help and Hope to Alabama

Today we're deploying three Oregon volunteers to Alabama. Tomorrow morning one more will hop on a plane bound for Birmingham. Other volunteers are already on the ground, and have been offering shelter, food, and hope to tornado survivors for the past couple of days.

Keep and eye on the national Red Cross flickr stream for photos of our volunteers in action. Below are a few from the disaster relief effort so far.

And since lots of folks in the twittersphere have been asking, I want to make sure to tell you the best way to help is to donate at RedCross.org or give $10 by texting REDCROSS to 90999.

Big thanks to you and all of our amazing volunteers.

Saturday: Win Tickets to the Timber's U.S. Open Match on May 3rd!

Can't make it to our Portland Timbers Blood Drive on May 7th?

This Saturday, April 30th, all presenting donors at both our Clark County and our Portland Donor Centers will be entered into drawings for free tickets to the Timbers' U.S. Open Cup Game on May 3rd!

The Portland Timbers host the San Jose Earthquakes, with kickoff at JELD-WEN Field set for 7:30 p.m. next Tuesday, May 3rd. Founded in 1914, the U.S. Open Cup is an annual, single-elimination competition open to all amateur and professional soccer teams affiliated with U.S. Soccer.

Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up

Welcome to the Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you. It's a non-comprehensive sampling of the larger and/or more intriguing aspects of our global work...

SUDAN: Three years after being abducted by an armed group, a teenage girl returns home with the help of the ICRC.

LIBYA: As fighting continues, the ICRC has stepped up its response - visiting detainees, providing medical supplies for hospitals, and delivering food and water that Libyan Red Crescent Society volunteers help distribute.

Côte d'Ivoire: The ICRC is bringing chemicals needed to treat the water that will be distributed to five million people for the next six months.

NIGERIA: The ICRC and Nigerian Red Cross Society are responding to the urgent needs of thousands of people displaced following post-election violence.

HAITI: Along with mosquito nets and in-person outreach, the Red Cross is using text messaging to fight malaria.

CHERNOBYL: 25 Years after the disaster, the Red Cross' Chernobyl Humanitarian Assistance and Rehabilitation Program still offers health screenings for survivors.


GLOSSARY:

ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Eat Ice Cream, Help Firefighters

Portland is expecting some unseasonably cold weather on Wednesday night, which means that you should DEFINITELY want to eat ice cream. Right? Right.

And the only thing better than ice cream is CHEAP ice cream...31 cent scoops, to be precise.

Yep, it's time for Baskin Robbins' 31 Cent Scoop Night -- Wednesday, April 27 from 5-10 p.m.

What's even nicer (and why I blog this every year) is that this event honors our nation's firefighters, who are partners with the Red Cross at every turn. In fact, Baskin Robbins is generously donating $10,000 to the National Fallen Firefighters Association.

So help out our friends the firefighters by eating inexpensive (but always delicious!) ice cream. I suggest April's Flavor of the Month -- Firehouse #31. Crunchy hot cinnamon ribbon laced through red cinnamon ice cream and packed with hot candy pieces? Yum!

What The Heck Is Liquefaction?

As you might imagine, we've been talking a lot about earthquakes lately, especially the risk of a Cascadia subduction zone quake right here in Oregon.

One word that has come up over and over again is "liquefaction" which, I'm not gonna lie, I had never heard of before.

Assuming that you, like me, 1. are unfamiliar and 2. like to learn new things, this post should serve as a visual tutorial to help you better understand the topic.

First, a definition from the USGS:

liquefaction

A process by which water-saturated sediment temporarily loses strength and acts as a fluid, like when you wiggle your toes in the wet sand near the water at the beach. This effect can be caused by earthquake shaking.

And now, a video of how liquefaction works:

And now, a video of liquefaction in action [scary!]:

And NOW, you can pat yourself on the back for learning something new about earthquakes!

P.S. Why should we worry about liquefaction? It goes without saying that Oregon's a pretty wet place (What do you call two days of rain in Oregon? A weekend.) and our ground is soggier than most. And anything that goes in that ground, like those houses on stilts we see in the West Hills, has a good likelihood of coming straight down. Yikes.