It’s been one week since Hurricane Laura struck the country as one of most powerful storms to ever hit the U.S. and the Red Cross continues to help people around the clock.
While the full extent of damage isn’t yet known, preliminary estimates indicate that more than 700,000 homes were affected by utility outages or heavy wind gusts. Officials believe that several thousand homes may either be destroyed or have major damage across the two states. Some areas are still unreachable with heavy debris blocking some roads. At least 130,000 people remain without power and water, and it could be weeks before service is fully restored.
How the American Red Cross is providing support to those affected by Hurricane Laura:
- More than 1,400 trained disaster workers have been mobilized to support relief efforts on the ground or virtually.
- Team of volunteers circulate through accessible neighborhoods to assess damage and provide food, water and snacks.
- Thousands of people are coming to service sites set up by the Red Cross and our partners to get water, food and emergency relief supplies.
- With the help of partners, the Red Cross has already served nearly 110,000 meals and snacks and distributed some 47,000 relief items and cleaning supplies.
- Wednesday night, various agencies helped about 21,000 people stay in emergency lodgings, including hotels and, in some instances, shelters.
- Red Cross workers are also helping to replace prescription medications, eyeglasses and offer emotional support to people whose lives have been turned upside down.
- Volunteers have provided more than 3,700 individual care contacts to help people with medical or disability needs or provide emotional and spiritual support during this challenging time.
Dedicated and compassionate American Red Cross volunteers make a response like this possible. The Red Cross is made up of over 300,000 volunteers who support every aspect of our mission. In fact, volunteers constitute about 90 percent of the American Red Cross workforce.
Two volunteers from the Red Cross of wanted to share how it feels and looks like to be on the ground helping the devastated communities in Texas and Louisiana. Their words and photos describe a deployment better than anyone else can.
Chris Wood
Chris Wood, a volunteer from Western Colorado is new to our humanitarian family. Since his start in March, Chris has earned 4 GROUP ACTIVITY POSITIONs (GAPS) – a very impressive achievement. He deployed on August 21st to Texas as a member of the sheltering team, where he is helping to provide a roof over the heads of those who lost their homes in Hurricane Laura.
This is what Chris has had to say when about his deployment so far:
Angela Bye
Angela Bye, a volunteer from the Mile High chapter has dedicated her time to the Red Cross for almost 2 years. She deployed on August 30th to Louisiana as part of the Disaster Assessment team. As a member of this team, she supports effective service delivery to those affected by Hurricane Laura by gathering, analyzing, interpreting and distributing accurate and timely information.
Angela has shared her deployment experience not from words but from photos. Here is a day of Angela’s deployment:
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you Chris, Angela and our other incredible volunteers for living the Red Cross mission. If you were inspired by Chris and Angela, please consider volunteering with the American Red Cross. Find out more at redcross.org/volunteer.