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The American Red Cross of the Susquehanna Valley is on duty providing disaster services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It is our mission to help the community prevent and prepare for disasters, and respond to emergencies.
Disaster response efforts aid families to recover from local, national disasters
Inevitably, disasters (most commonly home fires) result in emotional and financial hardships. In the past year, the American Red Cross of the Susquehanna Valley helped at 168 local disasters, where 824 individuals were displaced from their homes. That’s one disaster nearly every 48 hours!
Driven by a force of trained volunteers, American Red Cross Emergency Response provides for the immediate needs—food, clothing, shelter, and life-sustaining medication—of individuals and families impacted by disasters. Additional recovery services include disaster related mental health counseling and financial assistance/referral to help clients establish new residences. Extended care services may also include education and counseling, childcare, transportation related to meeting disaster-caused needs, and help for those affected by disasters to access other available resources.
In order to provide these services, 133 volunteers are trained and registered with our chapter for disaster assignments, responding primarily to local disasters within our communities such as home fires and floods. In addition, 38 of our disaster volunteers also traveled to other parts of the nation to help with fifteen large-scale disasters such as the recent flooding and tornados in the Midwest and the wildfires in California.
Disaster Education
We teach people of all ages how to prevent and prepare for natural and man-made disasters, such as fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves and winter storms. This year alone, the Susquehanna Valley Chapter will teach approximately 10,000 students what to do if their clothes catch fire, how to react to a tornado warning and what to put in a disaster supplies kit.
Disaster Preparation
The Red Cross has many programs to train and prepare individuals for emergencies that we know are inevitable. We encourage the community to take actions that will help them be ready and know how to respond to a disaster. Please use these resources to prepare yourself and your family
Training is also available throughout our region and those chapters include: Lebanon County, York County, Cumberland County, Franklin County, Hanover, and Middletown.
- There are also FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) Independent study courses you may be interested in. Please follow the link below for more information:
http://www.training.fema.gov/IS/crslist.asp
Disaster Response
Disaster Action Team (DAT) volunteers are the heart of American Red Cross disaster relief efforts. DAT members respond immediately to a disaster when called by emergency dispatch. DAT volunteers assess the scope of the damage and meet one-on-one with the affected family or families to determine their immediate disaster-related needs and ensure that those needs are met. Depending upon their individual needs, the Red Cross provides assistance to disaster victims for shelter, food, clothing, medical needs and mental health counseling.
The Susquehanna Valley chapter has extremely qualified volunteers who represent us proudly at disasters in the United States and abroad through Disaster Services Human Resources (DSHR), the national registry of American Red Cross volunteers.
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