Red Cross volunteer heads to Boston

Red Cross volunteer Sarah Perkins of Henrietta will head to Boston on Thursday to aid relief efforts.(Photo: Provided)

Henrietta resident Sarah Perkins knows a thing or two about disasters. As an American Red Cross volunteer for the last nine years, she's assisted with local disasters like house fires, and aided national relief efforts after hurricanes, wildfires or tornadoes.

Now, the Red Cross is sending her to Boston to assess the damage after a snowstorm dropped 2 feet of snow on the city Monday.

Perkins has a varied background in careers like the military, law enforcement, ranching and typography.

"I thought, 'There must be some reason why I've acquired all these skills and interests,' " said Perkins, adding that her expertise in these fields allowed her to work well on disaster scenes. "There's so many ways and opportunities for me to serve it all comes into play here."

Her job at the Rochester Red Cross chapter is disaster assessment going into disaster scenes after the fact and collecting information on damages and future needs, and tweaking future responses based on that data.

Perkins will leave early Thursday for Boston and plans to "hit the ground running," she said.

One of the biggest demands there right now is shelters, and that will be an ongoing Red Cross effort for the next few days. She'll have support from Red Cross leaders coming in from Buffalo and New Hampshire, and will work with local Red Cross teams to get the job done, she said.

Her first order of business will be to assess flood damage at homes along the coast, and her initial deployment will last for two weeks.

"But we never know how long we can be gone," Perkins said she helped with Hurricane Sandy relief for 28 days in 2012.

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Red Cross volunteer heads to Boston

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