The American Red Cross has mounted a massive response to help the people of Louisiana recover from the record rainfall and flooding. More than 500 Red Cross volunteers are on the way from across the country along with over 60 Emergency Response Vehicles (ERV). “This will be one of the biggest responses since our response to Hurricane Sandy,” said Gino Greco, CEO for the Colorado and Wyoming Region.
The Red Cross has opened 50 shelters in an effort to house more than 10,000 people who have had to leave their homes.
Red Cross volunteers and staff will be heading to Louisiana this week. The first to go will be drivers for the Emergency Response Vehicles from Grand Junction and Fort Collins. Each ERV is deployed with a team of two and they will be leaving from Denver Wednesday morning. The ERV teams will deliver food and water to shelters and when it is safe they will deliver cleanup supplies to individual homes.
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| Colorado Volunteers will drive an ERV similar to the one in the photo to help the people of Louisiana. Photo credit:American Red Cross |
Suzanne Faerber is one of the team members who will be taking the ERV to Louisiana. She has been a volunteer for three years and recently deployed to help people affected by floods in south Texas. “I really sympathize with the people in Louisiana. The suffering I saw in Texas made me realize how important the Red Cross is when there is a large disaster,” she said. “I am glad I can go there and help them.” A typical Red Cross deployment is for 14 to 21 days.
Also deploying to Baton Rouge, LA are volunteers Arden Anderson from Gunnison and Kevin Erickson from Denver. Colorado volunteers will also provide remote support via phone for individual client casework. The volunteers are titled Virtual Call Agents and will work from home to help people in Louisiana connect with Red Cross services. Volunteer Paul Lucas has been designated as a Virtual Call Agent.
How can you help?
We are in the early stages of the response and our goal is to try and meet the immediate needs of those affected by providing food, water and shelter.
You can help the Red Cross help the people of Louisiana by donating to Red Cross Disaster Relief. A special designation has been identified that will direct fund directly to the response. You can go to www.redcross.org/donate and then select LAFloods as a designation. You can call 1-800-RedCross and select Donate. Make sure you ask to designate the donation to the LAFloods. To make a $10 donation you can text the words LAFLOODS to 90999. The donation will show on your cellular provider bill.