Volunteers return from ‘ground zero'

By ROBBY LUCKE
Staff

"It was a very frightening place. I'll never get over that, I guess," said Peggy Williams.

She was speaking about the site of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

Williams and her husband, H.S. Williams, returned to Ennice earlier this month after spending three weeks in New York as part of the American Red Cross' disaster relief effort.

They've been on disaster relief trips before. In fact, this was their seventh such excursion this year. They left last New Years Eve for Arkansas following an ice storm. Then there were tornadoes in Mississippi, a flood in Miami, a flash flood in Arizona, tropical storm Allison in Louisiana and floods in West Virginia.

"This year there's been a lot of disasters, more so than some years," said Peggy Williams.

BACK HOME —H.S. and Peggy Williams pause for a photo soon after returning to Alleghany County after helping with relief efforts in New York City. Both are wearing their Red Cross badges and vests, used to help identify relief workers in controlled areas.

But, she said, "New York City was a different kind of disaster. Normally every day you're at a disaster, things get better. People get back in their homes, debris gets cleaned up, water goes down. In this disaster, things got worse every day." The death toll kept rising. "The number of workers went up everyday, people who were working at ‘Ground Zero.' There were policemen everywhere....

"We found out more stories about people....You would go in a drugstore or a laundry or a restaurant, and there were ‘missing' posters everywhere."

The Red Cross called the Williamses Sept. 12, the day after the attack.

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