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“I thought it would be sad and dramatic but it’s turned out to be very nice,” Racquel Bloomfield said Wednesday inside the emergency shelter at the Police Athletic League. “It actually feels a lot like home.”
Bloomfield is one of more than two dozen Yonkers residents who are still in need of a place to stay after Hurricane Sandy blew across Yonkers late Monday night.
Red Cross officials said at the peak of the emergency, late Monday night, the city’s two shelters hosted more than 55 victims. While a majority of them have since returned to their homes, Red Cross Spokesperson Carolyn Sherwin said volunteers still see visitors looking for a place to shower or get a hot meal.
Sherwin said the city's shelter at the Police Athletic League will remain open as needed and on a day-to-day basis.
“It’s open as long as it’s needed to stay open,” she said. “We’re open and here for the City of Yonkers.”
Inside the emergency shelter at 27 North Broadway Wednesday, children played with balloons as parents sat and talked with one another on cots that lined the gymnasium.
Like Bloomfield, many of the families are residents of a multi-family home at 10 Mooney Place which was evacuated after Sandy’s winds ripped off a portion of the roof and water began flowing into the home.
Bloomfield, who is staying at the shelter with her mother and three children, said she expects they will stay at the emergency shelter at least two more days. In the meantime, she said, they have access to food, water and a place to sleep – everything they need to wait out the crisis.
Most surprising, Bloomfield said, was that her children were handling the situation very well, a credit to the Red Cross and its volunteers.
“The kids think they are at camp or something the way they are acting,” she said. “They don’t realize the crisis that is going on, which is good.”
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