Pertinent Perils

We Did Our Part

As we approach the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the American Red Cross is sharing its lessons learned in a report Bringing Help, Bringing Hope: The American Red Cross Response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. With $2.2 billion in donor funds, the Red Cross provided shelter and emergency financial assistance to evacuees across thirty-one states and the District of Columbia. This assistance reached 1.4 million families or 4.5 million people, nineteen times the Red Cross’ previous record of outreach. The unprecedented scope and scale of the relief effort prompted the Red Cross to enhance planning for large-scale disasters and created new partnerships at the local, state and national levels. The Red Cross also established a national warehouse system, stocked with more than twice the amount of disaster relief supplies previously kept in inventory – enough to support 35,000 shelter residents. The number of trained disaster volunteers was increased from 25,000 to nearly 95,000, including nearly 50,000 who are on call to travel to disasters around the country. Finally, the Red Cross created web tools to connect families online after disasters. It was an extraordinary response to an unthinkable event. The image here shows the certificate we received from the Hurricane Recovery Director of the American Red Cross for our assistance to affected small businesses. We can all do something and the Red Cross report shows the results of many individual contributions.