Irene has caused widespread damage along the east coast and thousands are turning to the Red Cross for help.  The flooding from both the hurricane and storm has caused major power outages, loss and major damage of homes, items and more. 

Numerous Red Cross volunteers are out in these affected communities helping with the relief efforts and hearing their stories firsthand. The impact of this hurricane truly hit home for American Red Cross Volunteer, Eilene Guy, when she met Maria Pennell.

Maria and her six children returned home after the storm to find that a huge tree had crushed their house. Maria was close to tears when she told me she couldn’t go inside to retrieve her most precious belongings.

Maria’s brother, Orlando, had volunteered with the Red Cross after the last big storm, just as I’m doing now, and he expected to be helping his neighbors clean up this week – not going to a shelter himself.

“You always think something like this happens to someone else, not to you,” Orlando told me. “You never know how fast you can go from a volunteer to a victim.”

And thanks to generous donors, Maria’s family will have food to eat, and a place to sleep for as long as they need it.

What are we doing to help?

To date the American Red Cross has:

• Operated or supported approximately 70 shelters with more than 1,300 residents from North Carolina to New England.
• Provided approximately 53,000 overnight stays.
• Served more than 500,000 meals and snacks.
• Distributed more than 23,000 relief items such as hygiene kits, mops, brooms, tarps, work gloves and coolers.
• Provided nearly 7,000 mental health and health services consultations.
• Mobilized more than 4,000 workers to help people in need.
• Shipped 228,000 shelf stable meals; 18,150 clean up kits; 8,832 comfort kits; 7,960 shovels; 4,960 rakes; 7,516 gloves; and 80,800 trash bags.
• The Red Cross continues to deploy Disaster Assessment Teams into impacted communities to determine the extent of the damage on individuals.

How can the American people help?

Costs for relief efforts are growing by the hour as we help people in need. Our current best estimate is that Red Cross relief services for Hurricane Irene could cost $10 million to $15 million – and hurricane season is still upon us. We haven’t raised anywhere near that amount yet, but the public has always come through for us when Americans need help – and we really need your help now.

• Visit www.redcross.org , call 1-800-RED CROSS or text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.
• Contributions may also be sent to your local American Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013.