National Nurses United

8 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G M AY | J U N E 2 0 1 6 WEST VIRGINIA I f it weren't for Sonja Bland's cats, she might not have known the water was coming. Bland, an RN who works nights in the medical-surgical unit at Greenbrier Valley Medical Center and lives in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, was sleeping when a thunderstorm and her cats woke her up around two o'clock in the afternoon on June 23. When she got up to let the cats out, she noticed that the rain was really coming down hard and water seemed to be standing in the road. Half an hour later, when the cat meowed at the door to be let back in, Bland was surprised to see that water was gushing toward her house and already rose up to the first step of her front porch. "I knew I had to do something, get out of there at least," said Bland. Ever the nurse, she grabbed her purse, cats, and an armful of uniform scrubs, got in her car, and left. The water had risen almost to the bottom of her car. She had no idea that was the last time she would ever see her home. Bland was just one of thousands of victims of historic flooding in West Virginia and Louisiana this year, what some experts believe are the types of extreme weather events we will experience more often as a result of climate change and global warm- ing. National Nurses United's Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) always monitors every disaster for the potential to respond with RN volunteers or support for affected communities. In the case of West Virginia, RNRN donated $1,000 to the West Virginia Southeastern Central Labor Council Disaster Fund, which in total raised about $40,000 to help local union members and their families. For Bland, the flood was completely devastating, but also renewed her faith in her chosen profession, her nursing colleagues, and her community. The flash floods submerged her family's house and she lost everything, including all photos of her late father. When she was finally able to return to the house, she said that "it looked like a bomb had gone off. Like a war zone. There was debris everywhere." A total of 23 people lost their lives in the floods. Still, Bland said she was amazed and humbled by the support she received from her nurse peers and her community. "My coworkers kept in touch with me, offered help, offered support," said Bland. "They were among the first to supply me with the basics, like a bra!" When it came time to clean out her destroyed house, nurses, doctors, and techs alike showed up to help move, sort, and clean despite the muck. "My fellow nurses were there when I needed them the most." Later she would learn that some hospital employees lost family members, and some of her colleagues even cared for patients by penlight when the power went out during the height of the storm. When Bland returned to work, she was able to make special bonds with patients who had also survived the flood. She said she'll never forget one elderly lady who suffered from dementia and had to be rescued from the raging currents by drag- ging her to shore with a rope. She was barely functioning and had stopped talking. "I reached down and grabbed her hand and said, 'I know what you went through. I lost everything, too,'" said Bland. "She looked me right in the eye and I knew she understood." Bland cared for her another three nights. "There was such an outpouring of community support that gave us all hope and a sort of peace," said Bland. "People wanted nothing more than to just help somebody—a concept I know well through nursing." —Lucia Hwang Historic floods devastate nurse members' lives RNRN helps with donation NEWS BRIEFS To learn more about how to help flood victims and the Regis- tered Nurse Response Network, please visit the RNRN page at www.NationalNursesUnited.org.

• Cover