Retired former Spokane Valley couple travel to Saipan for typhoon relief

May 12-Janet Boehme never thought she would be celebrating her 82nd birthday in Saipan.

When she and her husband, Chuck, 81, got a call to be typhoon-relief volunteers from the American Red Cross Monday, she knew she would do exactly that.

The couple scrambled to pack up their motorhome for a Wednesday flight.

Though based in Tucson, Arizona, for the past three years, the Boehmes were longtime Spokane Valley residents. When Red Cross called earlier this week, they were staying in Silver Lake with a friend, having participated in Bloomsday.

Saipan and Tinian, two of the most populous U.S. territory islands in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, were hit by a storm called Super Typhoon Sinlaku in mid-April. The commonwealth's roughly 45,000 residents suffered floods, downed utility poles, flipped cars and uprooted tin roofs, according to an April report by the National Public Radio.

On May 6, the American Red Cross stated half of Saipan was without water and the nonprofit had facilitated more than 15,000 people in overnight shelters.

Neither Chuck nor Janet can remember how many emergency calls they've responded to since they began volunteering with the American Red Cross in 2011. Chuck joined initially, inspired by his friend and Mt. Spokane Ski Patrol colleague Craig Lee. Janet followed suit soon after, seeing Chuck responding to regional emergencies in the middle of the night.

"I thought, I'm awake anyways," she said. "I might as well go."

The Boehmes got hooked on helping and getting to know folks in a time of need, continuing to stay on call for about a week each month throughout their retirement. The goal is to help people get to the point of making their own decisions again after having lost everything.

"Some people make it through disasters without shoes, without any sort of identification," Chuck said. "It's a pretty daunting task to re-establish yourself. Anywhere you go, you need documentation, and a lot of these people just don't have anything to document their past."

While mostly responding to local house fires and wildfires, the Boehmes have traveled to help with large-scale disasters multiple times before , sometimes driving relief vehicles across the country to provide aid. The trip to Saipan will be nearly a day and a half of travel, connection points from Spokane in San Francisco, Tokyo and Guam (complete with at least one 10-hour layover).

A month after the initial shock, Chuck anticipates relief systems should be running pretty smoothly by now. His and Janet's jobs will likely consist of connecting people with resources such as clothing, food and housing - though such things can always change.

"Once you get to the disaster, if they need you somewhere else, you have got to be flexible to adjust to that," he said. "You have to leave a lot of your preconceived ideas behind and adjust to the environment and make sure the people you are helping feel as comfortable as possible."

"It helps us from getting stuck in our ways," he added later.

The couple will be in Saipan for three weeks and plan to spend some quality time with their five grandchildren on the drive back to Arizona afterward. They encourage anyone able to join the Red Cross.

"Any kind of volunteering is really heartwarming and makes you feel good about yourself," Janet said.

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