Silicon Valley Volunteers Deployed to East Coast in Wake of Hurricane Sandy

Three Silicon Valley American Red Cross volunteers are among seven people from the Greater Bay Area who have been deployed to the East Coast to help with relief efforts from Hurricane Sandy.

According to Patricia Peper, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter, the local rescue workers are from Mountain View, San Jose and Union City and all are being sent to south Jersey.

"At this point we're fishing people all along and they'll make some movement of people once we understand where the needs are greatest and once the full scale of the storm's damage is assessed," Peper said.

Two of the volunteers will be helping with sheltering operations and another will be working with client services to identify those needing help, she added.

"It's a major response for us," Peper indicated.

The agency has already mobilized several hundred volunteers throughout the  country and has sent out more than 100 emergency response vehicles up and down the Eastern sea board, or coastline.

The workers will supply cots, blankets and food and coordinate with other agencies in the affected areas such as the Salvation Army. "It's a large scale effort for us," she said. "We're anticipating this will impact millions of people across the Eastern Coast."

Peper said the workers don't know yet where the impact of Hurricane Sandy will be felt the worst, but they're just getting ready to be in place when it hits the area, expected sometime Monday.

Meteorologists say Hurricane Sandy is a massive tropical cyclone that has already ravaged Jamaica, Cuba, The Bahamas, Haiti and Florida, and is currently threatening the East Coast and Eastern Canada.

It's already caused major destruction in the Caribbean where it killed 40 people and caused authorities to declare a state of emergency in Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, New Jersey and Connecticut.