California National Guard set to stage in Santa Rosa, starting at Redwood Empire Food Bank

California National Guard troops are scheduled to be on the ground in Sonoma County starting Tuesday, bolstering staffing at the North Coast’s largest food bank, where daily demand is soaring amid the coronavirus crisis and regional shutdown.

But the troops’ local mission could soon expand beyond that, as Sonoma County officials are in ongoing talks to secure National Guard help to set up hundreds of patient beds to manage a projected surge of COVID-19 cases. Sonoma State University is emerging in closed-door talks as the likely site for that potential hospital overflow, according to sources close to the discussions.

Meanwhile, Redwood Empire Food Bank officials say community food needs are projected to double in the coming days and weeks as the economic aftershocks of the global pandemic - and the government’s response to it - continue to shake the foundations of daily life.

The scheduled arrival of 40 guardsmen and women on Tuesday morning comes a little more than two weeks after California Gov. Gavin Newsom on March 20 initiated a “short deployment” of the state’s National Guard, opening up the agency for county-level requests.

Teams have assisted at other food banks in the Bay Area and beyond, including Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Amador, Sacramento and Riverside counties, filling in for food banks that have seen demand skyrocket and volunteer corps dwindle, particularly among the elderly.

“The fact that there’s a shelter-in-place (in effect), there needs to be assurance. Food resources are in dire need every day,” Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said. “Now that we’re in a wartime scenario of sheltering in place, you can’t count on volunteers when they have to take care of their personal needs.”

Shelter orders aimed at halting the spread of the coronavirus have shuttered hundreds of businesses across the region and resulted in the furlough or layoff of thousands of employees. With schools closed through the rest of the academic year, children who would normally enjoy two nutritious meals per day are doing without.

Lisa Cannon, director of development for the Redwood Empire Food Bank, said that collision of immediate need is expected to double its regular clientele, to about 164,000 people, at a monthly cost of about $2 million.

As is, the group already serves about one in six people across Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

Meeting the new needs will require mobilizing a small army. Food bank employees and volunteers are working out of a number of sites, including a large tent that’s serving as a makeshift warehouse. The nonprofit is actively seeking more warehouse space as demand grows.

They’ve changed operations, too. Where the food bank typically fostered a sort of shopping environment, allowing people to pick and choose, they have now put in place a drive-thru model where employees or volunteers load prepacked boxes in residents’ trunks or pickup beds.

They need help with those prepacked boxes, Cannon said.

“We need a group of sturdy individuals who can come here and pack boxes for us all day long,” Cannon said, referring to the National Guard help. “That’s what they’ll be doing, packing these boxes.”

Sonoma County officials have a separate, outstanding request for National Guard assistance: They want troops to provide support for hospitals and potentially help set up alternate care sites that could host up to 500 patients during a possible surge of COVID-19 patients.

They’ve yet to get a firm answer on that request, which Gore characterized as a first during this crisis.

“So far, the National Guard has not been deployed to support alternate care sites,” he said, adding that county officials are just having preliminary conversations at this point.

The county has yet to publicly confirm that it has narrowed its focus on Sonoma State, where vacated dorms could provide space for hospital overflow.

Negotiations are ongoing between the county and university, said Paul Gullixson, an SSU spokesman. County officials refused to publicly comment on the selection other than to say that they expected to reach a decision and deal within the coming days.

The California National Guard has often helped out in Sonoma County during disasters, including the fires of 2017 and 2019, and historic floods. The time has come, once again, for troops to lend their hands.

“We need to align different levels of government to achieve a surge in resources,” Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said. “That’s when we really appreciate help from our state and federal partners.”

You can reach Staff Writer Tyler Silvy at 707-526-8667 or at tyler.silvy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @tylersilvy.