Disaster Relief Efforts of the American Red Cross are being stretched as emergency situations continue to develop across the county.
A press release issued by the Southern Missouri Chapter of the Red Cross last week reports that several volunteers from both Arkansas and Missouri have been responding to assist with relief efforts from the wildfires in the Western States along with flooding from tropical storms in the Midwest and East Coast.
Since the initial release, Hurricane Ida has surged into a major hurricane that is going to hit the Louisiana and Mississippi coast today. Ozarks First reports that several volunteers are heading south to assist with relief efforts there.
“As wildfires impact areas of the West Coast, combined with flooding in the Midwest and tropical storms impacting the East Coast, volunteers from the Missouri and Arkansas Region continue to step up to help,” said Chris Harmon, Regional Disaster Officer for American Red Cross of Missouri-Arkansas in the earlier release. “Disasters come in all shapes and sizes, and we need more volunteers to not only help respond to large-scale disasters like these, but also to help at home to respond to local disasters that happen every day, such as home fires.”
The Red Cross is seeking more volunteers to help with these and other potential emergencies in light of predictions of an active hurricane and wildfire season and also donations to help fund those efforts. For more information on volunteering and donating, go to https://www.redcross.org/
or by calling 1-800-Red-Cross.