Hurricane Matthew: Local Red Cross Volunteers are Headed to Florida

A total of more than 2,700 Red Cross disaster workers are supporting relief efforts.

As Americans in the path of hurricane Matthew prepare for the worst, emergency response crews from the Greater Columbus area are headed down to the Southeast to provide assistance.

The hurricane is expected to hit Florida Thursday and continue into the weekend. More than 18,000 people across four states woke up Saturday morning in 183 Red Cross and community evacuation shelters. In that time, she’s been on about a dozen national deployments to respond to disasters. The two drove an ERV, or Emergency Response Vehicle, to their two-week assignment.

Volunteers are always welcome and monetary donations will go a long way in relief efforts, Kemp added. No RSVP is required.

“We just felt like if we can alleviate and help them reconstruct their lives, it would be a good thing to do”, Silas added. “So it can be quite lengthy the time we have people in shelters and they are doing feeding and people down there working in storm effected areas”, she said.

Thousands of people are still staying at Red Cross shelters on the east coast.

The American Red Cross says almost 30 Wisconsin volunteers are heading to impacted areas. Volunteers said the goal was to get people trained and in the field as quickly as possible.

Sargent told me that every storm is different and they really won’t know the degree of aide necessary until the worst of the storm has passed.

This has resulted in more than 1,500 blood and platelet donations to go uncollected, the Red Cross says.

There are also many others who are on standby should more volunteers to be called elsewhere to help.