After Losing Everything to a Fire, Woman Finds New Calling With Red Cross

By: Liz Burlingame

Published: March 12,2014

 

 

 

 

 

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Stephanie Royal and her husband lost everything in a fire two years ago. Today, she's dedicated herself to helping others get back on their feet. (Courtesy of Stephanie Royal)

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Some find their calling through a subtle gift, like the ability to relate to children, or after reading an inspiring book. But for Stephanie Royal, it came the day she drove home from work in 2012, and found she had lost nearly everything.
Royal, 42, and her husband pulled up to their North Carolina home that evening, and saw fire trucks covering the front yard. A fire had engulfed the home, incinerating most of their possessions. Investigators later determined the blaze was sparked by a lightning strike to a tree in their yard.
"I was shocked," she said. "The fire marshall told us that had it been 10 more minutes, the entire house would've been destroyed."
Suddenly homeless, Royal said it was the American Red Cross that got her through the first night. Within 30 minutes of the fire, volunteers arrived to tend to the couple, giving them a voucher for a hotel stay, clothing and food. In the coming days, a Red Cross case worker kept in touch in case they needed anything else, from prescription replacements to pet boarding.
"I remember thinking that I couldn't believe they were helping regular community members like us," Royal said. "In the beginning, I didn't know much about the Red Cross — we figured they were more national than local."
Royal said the experience sparked something in her. As she worked to get back on her feet, she felt driven to help others do the same. That year, Royal became a volunteer with the Asheville and Henderson, N.C. Red Cross chapters, and was later deployed to New York and New Jersey following Hurricane Sandy.
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Working amid the chaos, Royal helped deliver supplies to communities hit by the storm, and met with people who had lost homes, businesses and, in some cases, a lifetime of memories stored in basements or living rooms. By its end, Sandy had destroyed thousands of homes and was linked to more than 70 deaths in the U.S.
"It was catastrophic," she said of the scene when she first arrived in 2012. "Going through a similar situation, it felt really good to be there and make a difference. It's an amazingly positive experience to help these people, and it's something you experience every time you're [dispatched]."
Back home in Brevard, N.C., Royal continued to care for her own community, signing on to lead a Red Cross disaster action team, which responds to home fires more often than any other emergency. While each fire is different in some way, Dawn Huff, Royal's supervisor, said the agency's response always begins the same — with a fire department call to the Red Cross call center. From the report, a disaster action team is dispatched as quickly as possible.
"These teams are on call 24 hours a day, seven day a week," Huff said.
The teams arrive in the familiar Red Cross hard hats and coats. They're the only ones, besides police and firefighters, who are often allowed inside the line created with yellow caution tape.
During local emergencies, Huff said that Royal is not only proactive but flexible, which is the biggest thing they ask of volunteers. "Sometimes when we respond, it can be messy and unorganized, and that's just the nature of disasters," Huff said. "We've really got to roll with the punches."
Though the trauma of losing her home was painful, Royal said she's gained so much in her time at the Red Cross. The change she felt after the fire stayed with her, and now that she's experienced life as a volunteer, she has no plans to stop.
She plans to volunteer on a full-time schedule in the future. "This is something I'll probably be doing for the rest of my life," she said.
For more inspiring stories from Red Cross volunteers across the country, scroll through the slideshow below.

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