They may never know her name, but people driven from their homes by floodwaters or tornadoes may well be saying a prayer for selfless people like Charlotte Barlik.

Responding to a middle-of-the-night phone call, the 77-year-old Avon woman was one of hundreds who brought them hot food, encouragement and a bit of comfort.

“I had to pack in such a hurry, I didn’t even think to take a camera,” Barlik said.

The June 9 call came from Art Mead, who oversees disaster services efforts for the Red Cross office in Elyria. He told Barlik, a six-year Red Cross volunteer, that she’d be manning an emergency response vehicle headed for southern Indiana.

“He asked me if I could be ready in two hours. I looked at my husband, who said ‘Let’s get ready,’ ” she said.

By sunrise, Barlik was aboard the vehicle headed for Franklin, Ind., a small town in the heart of an area devastated by a double whammy of floods and tornadoes days earlier.

Supplied by the Cleveland chapter of the Red Cross, the ERV is a specially modified van used to get hot food and cold food, clean drinking water and personal hygiene items to people left homeless at disaster sites.

“It has a full kitchen that can serve up to 500 meals,” she said.

Barlik and fellow Red Cross volunteers began feeding some 150 adults and kids whose homes were either destroyed or sustained severe damage by the vicious weather.

“The damage was so extensive, it was amazing they could re-build,” Barlik said. “When you could see inside homes, the floors and walls were all gone. It tore everything apart.”

When she wasn’t working, Barlik rested and kept in touch with her husband, Robert, 78, by cell phone.

“It was one of those cheap ones you buy. It had 300 minutes on it,” she said. “I told him ‘I don’t want to use the minutes for anyone but you.’ ”

TV news footage of the disaster sites paled next to witnessing the devastation in person.

“Pictures just don’t do it justice … to see everything taken from these people,” she said.

Through it all, Barlik was most touched by the resilience shown by so many.

Most of those she served food to said they planned to rebuild.

“When they realized how much help was available, it really perked up their spirits. Neighborhoods really came together,” she said. “People were bringing all kinds of things … clothes, furniture, water.”

Barlik is one of three area women — including Janice Schmidt of Vermilion and Patricia Yacobucci of North Olmsted — who just recently returned from three weeks of disaster relief work in Indiana and Wisconsin.

Nationwide some 1,100 Red Cross workers, including 900-plus volunteers, were sent to Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin.

When they’re not volunteering for the Red Cross, the Barliks give their time and energy to the National Park Service. Charlotte mans visitor centers and toll booths in Florida, Texas and New Mexico, while Robert does maintenance work such as cutting the grass.

“We are thankful we can be as active as we are,” Barlik said. “When you get old, you have time to do all these things.”

Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com.

 

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