EDITOR'S NOTE: According to other family members ABC10 has since spoken with, Ellen Hall is safe and out of the Red Cross shelter living with family in Chico. The family says the missing money was not stolen and taken out by Hall.
FOLSOM, Calif. -- Cynthia Hall has been planning for months to help move her 85-year-old mother from Paradise to her home in Folsom, where Hall has operated a dance studio for the past 40 years.
But then the Camp Fire hit.
Hall's mother, Ellen—who she said has recently shown signs of dementia -- safely escaped her now-destroyed mobile home in Paradise. But the two have not been able to see each other since, and due to do privacy rules with the Red Cross, nobody will tell her where her mother is.
"It's the confidentiality that they have," Hall said. "They can't tell me if she's there. They can't tell me if she's OK. They can't tell me if she has enough medication. They just can't tell me anything."
In the days following the Camp Fire, Hall looked on the Red Cross' Safe and Well website and learned her mother signed into a shelter at the Neighborhood Church in Chico. She went to pick her up and was told she couldn't.
"The Red Cross mental health nurses said she doesn't want to get in a car. Get in a car," Hall explained. "I think it was because of the fire she saw on the way up there, from Paradise to Chico... she was probably very scared."
Since then, Hall has continued to call the Red Cross asking they be reunited, but she keeps hitting the same wall. She believes her mother has now been transferred to two other shelters and is now most likely at the last shelter still open at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico.
Stephen Walsh, a spokesperson for the Red Cross, said between 700 and 800 people are currently at that shelter. He said due to confidentiality policies, they cannot release names of people staying there.
"The Red Cross can approach our client and tell them that someone wants to communicate with them," Walsh said. "It is ultimately the decision of the client whether or not they want to or not."
Hall said she believes her mother is traumatized and confused.
"I felt like the dementia had all set in, the trauma of losing her house and all of her belongings," Hall said.
Hall also has another concern. A few weeks ago, she said, $140 dollars was taken out of her mother's bank account on the same day her social security check was deposited. The password for the account was also changed.
"She had no access, she had no cell phone, nothing," she said. "So, someone from the outside must have done this."
Asked about whether there could be scammers in the shelter, Walsh said while he has not heard of anything first-hand, "absolutely that is a risk."
That risk is just one of the many reasons Hall, who is now thinking about getting an attorney, said she wants to see her mother and take her home.
"I'm not getting the answers I need," she said. "Somebody needs to come forward and show my mom her loved one is looking for her.
Follow the conversation on Facebook with Liz Kreutz.