There were plenty of heroes from the first (and hopefully last) flood of 2009. Many wore badges and drove emergency vehicles.

Others are average citizens: unsinkable volunteers who gave much and slept little.

Their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

“I want to thank Washington residents for their continued neighbor-to-neighbor efforts to support those around them,” Chris Gregoire said Saturday. “We can all be proud of how well we come together in the face of adversity.”

We’d like to introduce you to some of those volunteers.

SCOUT'S HONOR

Boy Scout Troop 835 is ready for trouble at a moment’s notice.

With their own mobile kitchen and trailer, the troop started feeding flood victims from Edgewood and Graham to Pacific and Auburn on Thursday.

The 15 scouts focus on emergency services because “the boys just love to serve,” said Scoutmaster Jim Brass, who’s also minister of Pacific Community Church in Pacific. The boys arrive at emergency scenes with an old school bus they gutted and equipped with a propane stove, refrigerator, microwave, hot water tank, bathroom and freezer.

It’s stocked with enough food for 1,500 meals, blankets and flashlights. Each scout has a food handler’s permit.

Troop member Perry Fraze, 16, alternated cooking and serving with filling and delivering sandbags Thursday and Friday from the troop’s staging area at Pacific Algona Senior Center. At times, he slogged through water three inches above his navel to stack sandbags.

“It’s a really good learning experience for life,” the Auburn High School sophomore said. “It teaches me how to get along with people who are in need and having problems with their houses, feeling depressed cause they’re losing 90 percent of the stuff they‘ve saved up for their whole life.”

He’s seen some flood victims in shock, and others weep.

The troop cuts and sells firewood to buy supplies, but also accepts donations at Bank of America, Edgewood branch, or sent to P.O. Box 77, Pacific WA 98047.

Debby Abe, The News Tribune

IN IT TOGETHER

Jane Hughes and her family were stationed in Germany when she first volunteered with the Red Cross.

“I did casework for military members through Armed Forces Services,” she said. “When we moved to Washington, my daughter joined the Girl Scouts, and we looked for a volunteer opportunity.’

The American Red Cross, Mount Rainier Chapter was a natural fit.

“We signed up to do disaster work, and I became a disaster team captain,” said Hughes, 52.

Last week, as the waters rose, that meant mobilizing resources, setting up a shelter at Calvary Community Church in Sumner, training a group of new volunteers, going home for a few hours of sleep, working a full day as a commercial property manager, going out to the shelter until midnight, then repeating the last two steps the next day.

The church has sheltered three to eight families a day during the floods.

“A lot of them come for a warm place to dry off, have some food and then go back to check on their homes,” she said. “We give them food, a dry place, and let them know someone is here, thinking about them.”

Kathleen Merryman, The News Tribune

RIVER WATCH VOLUNTEER

When natural disaster strikes, emergency officials know they can count on the likes of Alan Hughes.

For more than 15 years, the South Hill granddad has scouted river and road conditions for the Pierce County Emergency Operations Center. He heads River Watch, a small volunteer group that monitors the Puyallup, Carbon and Nisqually rivers when they threaten to flood.

“He can smell the water coming,” said Mark Yordy, an emergency services employee and River Watch liaison from Purdy.

The amateur radio operator carries a cell phone and drives a four-door Silverado pickup equipped with a ham radio and county radio to keep in close contact with the center.

“The messages I give to the EOC help determine whether they evacuate places,” says Hughes, 59. “We’re their eyes and ears out in the field.”

Electronic gauges on debris-laden rivers can break or give inaccurate readings during storms, said Ken Parrish, the center’s emergency operations manager.

On Wednesday, Hughes and Yordy racked up 275 miles traveling the main drags and backroads of Puyallup, Orting, South Prairie and McKenna from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m.

As the heavens poured, they stood on bridges and lowered a tape measure to mark the distance from the river to the bridge. They estimated water height at banks and levees, and reported landslides, downed trees and water over roadways.

“I just enjoy doing it,” said Hughes, an unemployed licensed practical nurse. “It’s something to help out the public.”

Debby Abe, The News Tribune

RIDERS TO THE RESCUE

The young “Fire Riders” horse club turned a hobby into a good deed during last week’s floods.

Members of the Graham-area 4-H group cared for horses for three days to help an Orting flood victim.

Club co-leader Crystal Widmann decided to offer help at the Pierce County Fairgrounds in Graham after learning owners could bring livestock there to wait out the floods. Widmann’s 11-year-old daughter, Jacki, suggested they call up fellow Fire Riders.

Club members ended up feeding, watering, brushing and shoveling out manure for Cindy Robinson of Orting. She had taken her four horses, plus two she was boarding and a neighbor’s horse, to the shelter, but had to return to her 27-acre spread.

As the Carbon and Puyallup rivers threatened to overrun her land, Robinson frantically tried to raise all her furniture and belongings. The waters eventually flooded a pasture but not her house.

“To take care of the animals on top of everything going on would have been a nightmare,” Robinson said. “I was so lucky they were available.”

The Fire Riders, ranging from 9 to 16 years old, were more than happy to oblige.

“We just had a good time with it, and we were helping out people, too,” said Jacki, a fifth-grader at Carson Elementary School in Puyallup.

Debby Abe, The News Tribune

HAVE 4x4, WILL VOLUNTEER

When the waters poured into the Orting Valley, volunteers of all stripes were called out to help.

One of those was Becky Anderson and her 2005 lifted Dodge pickup. The 22-year-old Orting resident is president of the Pierce County Search and Rescue 4x4 Unit, a group of off-roaders who come together to help the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office and Department of Emergency Management when they are stretched thin.

For last week’s flood, Anderson and her counterparts blocked Highway 162 and made sure only residents made it into the flood-ravaged area. It’s one way authorities protected the abandoned homes from looting.

“Since I’ve been in the unit, this is the first time we were used in a containment situation,” said Anderson, who worked 27 hours straight during the floods.

The all-volunteer group previously has been called out to help transport people off roads, across ice and through treacherous areas in windstorms. The group began about 20 years ago, and is open to anyone with a 4x4 and who can pass a background check.

Anyone interested in joining can visit www.pcsar4x4.org.

“We are always looking for volunteers,” Anderson said.

Brian Everstine, The News Tribune

'TIME TO STEP UP'

Chris Reuter-Crona got the word on the job in strategic development at Russell Investments: The company was looking for employees willing to volunteer for flood relief with the American Red Cross Mount Rainier Chapter.

“The appeal was made at work,” he said. “For me, it was pretty easy. When the community is in need, it’s time to step up and help.”

Reuter-Crona, 53, joined the disaster assessment team working in Orting.

“In some places there was absolutely no damage,” he said.” In other places there was severe damage, depending on where things were and how the levees worked.”

The people he met, he said, were full of community spirit, and determined to deliver that help to old houses, new houses, mobile homes and stately homes.

“I feel good about being here today,” he said Friday. “There was one common denominator: This passion to help, and make sure our community is taken care of.”

Kathleen Merryman, The News Tribune

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

Cats and dogs lived together, though briefly, at Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Graham.

It was three dogs and two cats – and 10 people, too – said Ron Terry, church member since 1985, retired Air Force since 1990 and the church’s shelter manager.

“We do shelter exercises all the time in the Air Force, mainly (to prepare) for nuclear exposure, so throughout my years I’ve had plenty of shelter experience,” Terry said Friday.

The 68-year-old led a team of about 35 church volunteers.

“Our goal is as soon as I’m notified I can have my shelter open within one hour,” Terry said. And it worked: Pierce County called Wednesday morning and Terry’s operation was open about 8 a.m.

The church has been an official shelter for just a year.

The county initially told the church to be prepared for about 20 people who had been evacuated from an assisted living facility in Orting. But they never came.

“We told people you can stay here as long as you need and we’re just gonna have a party out of it,” said pastor Lance Williamson. “We put on a movie and we had food for folks.”

It was spaghetti the first night, but on Thursday McDonald’s brought breakfast and Little Caesar’s brought lunch. By dinnertime, Terry said, everyone was on their way home.

Kathleen Cooper, The News Tribune