Presenting $20,000 to help with the local tornado relief effort Thursday, Consul General of Taiwan Jeffrey Wang called up the long history of friendly relations with the United States – and with Virginia.
When his country suffered an earthquake 10 years ago, he said, a rescue team from Fairfax County, Va., came halfway around the world to aid Taiwan’s people.
When a landslide struck two years ago, the U.S. lent a military helicopter to the search and rescue effort.
Now, he said, in Virginia’s time of need, his country wanted to offer something back.
“Although it is a modest contribution to the relief effort, I just want to be here to extend our care and also our sympathy and also our compassion toward the people that were affected here,” he said. “I am here as a gesture of friendship and reciprocity from our nation, to show our appreciation and our care for our people here.”
Virginia Delegate Joe Johnson, D-Abingdon, has a memory that goes back even farther, to the 1950s, when he served in the Korean War. He remembers the Taiwanese people he knew back then.
“Those people were fighting communism, and they were having a hard time. But they stood up to the communist regime and remained free, and they stood tall,” he said. “By the contribution they have made to the relief fund, they are even taller today.”
It was in the early morning hours of April 28 that an EF3 tornado ripped through parts of Washington and Smyth counties, leveling much of Glade Spring area and resulting in the deaths of four people.
Johnson said that in addition to the $20,000 contribution, $600 is being given by a Taiwanese community in Virginia.
Without naming names, Johnson and others speaking at the donation ceremony expressed hope that the gesture will inspire others, particularly U.S. government agencies, to send help.
Fred Parker, president of the United Way of Russell and Washington Counties, which received the donation, expressed hope that government officials just a few hundred miles up the road will hear the message that’s come from thousands of miles away: Washington County needs help.
The governor’s request for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency just after the storms was turned down, although several Tennessee counties in the region impacted by the same storms are receiving FEMA help. That decision is being appealed and local officials are waiting for a determination.
Dulcie Mumpower, chairwoman of the Washington County Board of Supervisors, said county leaders are very touched by the generosity of Taiwan.
“We will never forget this,” said Travis Staton, CEO of the United Way.
dmccown@bristolnews.com
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