Organizations to help residents after crash
Peter Carpenter
Organizations to help residents after crash
Nonprofits seek to heal mental, financial wounds of those impacted by
plane disaster
by Sue Dremann
Palo Alto Online Staff
Local organizations are stepping forward to help East Palo Altans who
are struggling after Wednesday's plane crash into a residential
neighborhood.
The commute-hours crash, in which a Cessna 310R slammed into high-
powered electrical lines along San Francisquito Creek and broke up
over the 1100 and 1200 blocks of Beech Street, damaged four homes and
several vehicles.
Three engineers from Tesla Motors, Inc. died in the crash but no
residents were injured, according to fire and police authorities.
Some residents were left homeless and others were evacuated. At least
two families lost their livelihood, family members said.
Shortly after the accident an American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter team
opened a shelter at the East Palo Alto YMCA to prepare for a possible
evacuation of the entire block, according to spokeswoman Melanie
Finke.
By evening, an emergency vehicle was still available on Beech to
assist residents in crisis and volunteers found housing for an
evacuated family, she said.
Volunteer counselors also helped residents, many of whom felt a great
deal of uncertainty after the crash, she said. Neighbors said an 80-
year-old woman fainted after the fiery plane plummeted from the sky,
thinking the end of the world had come.
And the owner of a day care facility whose adjacent home was destroyed
was taken by ambulance to the hospital for treatment of high blood
pressure.
Residents' nerves were again rattled at about 4 or 5 a.m. on Thursday,
after one of the burned and damaged vehicles again caught fire, they
said.
"Even if it doesn't affect them physically, it affects them mentally,"
resident Joy Wright said.
Witnesses to the crash, some of whom saw the fiery wreckage and bodies
of the men who died, will not soon forget what they saw.
"There was fire everywhere," said Benita Brown, who was at home when
she heard the first "boom" and ran to her window, only to see the
plane explode. "The house shook. It felt like an earthquake."
Volunteers from Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that
builds affordable homes for needy families, arrived at the crash site
around 1 p.m. Wednesday to check on several homes the group has built
on Beech. The Greater San Francisco chapter built its first home on
the street in 1989, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Doettling.
Doettling said one home previously built by Habitat was damaged. The
organization had not yet reached the owner of that home to determine
if it can help with any repairs, she said.
David Foley, director of 2nd Mile, a Menlo Park faith-based nonprofit
that has renovated homes and schools in East Menlo Park and East Palo
Alto, such as Cesar Chavez Academy, Ronald McNair Academy, James Flood
School and Willow Oaks Elementary School, arrived on Thursday morning
to assess the damage to four homes. Foley could not gain entry to the
secured area but said after police allow access he would return.
Two homes on Beech were renovated by the organization, including the
YoungLife house and another home that houses struggling young women
with children, he said.
Foley said he wanted to see about renovating the home of Lisa Jones,
the preschool owner.
Fifty percent of the home was burned after the plane's wing crashed
into it and exploded. The rest of the home was water- and smoke-
damaged -- a total loss, according to Menlo Park Fire District Chief
Harold Schapelhouman.
"We were going to renovate Brentwood Elementary School as our April
project but we heard about the loss of homes here and said, 'We have
to switch,'" he said.
Foley said the group receives its funding from private donations, many
of whom live "up on the hill." Engaging with the East Palo Alto
community has opened many volunteers' and donors' eyes and hearts, he
said.
One victim of the crash who walked away was feeding his baby when the
plane careened into a retaining wall and crashed in front of his
rental home, he said. Juan Carlos Ramirez said he ran into the
backyard with his wife and child.
"I was scared. I thought the house blew up," he said. But Ramirez
worried that he might face more than temporary evacuation from his
rental home. Both of the family's trucks were burned in the crash, he
said.
"My dad makes the rent payments. He picks up scrap metal to make the
rent payments," he said.
On Wednesday he was searching for answers about who would pay to
replace the trucks. The family could not afford insurance on the
vehicles, he said.
As the afternoon wore on, he looked on helplessly as emergency crews
and aviation officials investigated the scene.
"We're getting hungry. There's no place like home, you know."
The organization 2nd Mile is accepting donations and can be reached at
www.2ndmile.org