American Red Cross providing shelter and relief for wildfire victims

AccuWeather

The American Red Cross has landed in Southern California providing shelter and relief for the wildfires victims in the region. Betsy Robertson speaks on the non-profit organization's efforts.

Transcript

00:00In every natural disaster, it's the American Red Cross that quickly arrives and sets up

00:04to help. Right now, they are on the ground in Los Angeles to help victims of the wildfires.

00:09Betsy Robertson is the national spokesperson for the American Red Cross. Good morning,

00:14Betsy. I know you are working for the Red Cross, and you're at a shelter right now.

00:18Can you tell us how many people have been staying there overnight?

00:22Sure. I'm at the Westwood Recreation Center in Los Angeles. It's not far from the UCLA campus,

00:27and this shelter has hosted around 200 people overnight all week long. These are residents who

00:34are not sure if they have homes to go home to. Some know they don't. Others have just been

00:40waiting for evacuation orders to be lifted, and so we are just here making sure that their

00:45immediate needs are being taken care of. That's got to be so hard, the unknown part of it, too,

00:50whether or not your home is still standing. And with so many that know they have lost their homes

00:54and so much more inside their homes, what kind of help is the Red Cross able to provide?

01:00So right now, we're continuing to just make sure people have a safe place to go,

01:03that they are not experiencing this tragedy alone, regardless of their resources. So

01:08continue to have a place to stay, shower, get fed, talk to health volunteers,

01:16talk to someone about their mental health. Also, at a lot of our shelters, we have now FEMA and

01:21other partners set up along here with us, having those conversations with folks about

01:27their current status and what their next steps might be.

01:31What are the Red Cross's plans for the next few days, since obviously the fires are not put out

01:36and there are still some threats? What will people be needing there?

01:40Yeah, so we're going to continue sheltering as long as it's needed. There is talk about some

01:46evacuation orders being lifted, so some of that population may start to go home. We really want

01:52to caution people if they're going to go back into a zone that was and experienced the fire,

01:58that they are, of course, following orders from local officials, but also taking extra caution

02:02because it's still very dangerous. There could be hot spots. There could be other contaminants there

02:07that we just don't want folks to be exposed to. So just know that the shelter is going to be here

02:12as long as it's needed, and the future remains to be seen. Exactly what the timeline will be,

02:20but the Red Cross is going to be here with our teams of volunteers and all of the compassion

02:25that they have to give, as long as we need to be. All right, well then, how can people help

02:29all the great work that the Red Cross is doing? First of all, you can go to RedCross.org and find

02:36out about how you can make a donation to this event and disasters that may be happening in

02:41your own backyard. You can find out about how to become a volunteer. Again, the people who are here

02:46wearing these red vests are people who signed up in their local communities. They took the training,

02:51and then they raised their hands when there was a tremendous need, and they got on planes to come

02:55here. So becoming a volunteer, finding a way to contribute to your local chapter, as well as this

03:01major event that's happening in Southern California, we welcome all of your support. You can

03:06go to RedCross.org to learn more about that. Betsy Robertson, National Spokesperson for the

03:12American Red Cross, thank you again for joining us on Accuweather Early. Thank you so much.

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