On Sunday, September 15th, I returned from North Carolina where I supported the people affected by Hurricane Dorian. When I departed from Massachusetts just a week prior, I had been informed that I would lead a team of Red Crossers in the implementation of a recovery program that offers immediate assistance to households severely affected by the storm.
Thank goodness North Carolina had been spared a direct hit from Dorian, but there were still a significant number of families who suffered devastating damage.
I was part of a ten-person recovery casework team that was brought in to implement the Immediate Assistance (IA) Program. IA is a tool designed to assist disaster survivors with financial assistance (a flat rate per household), with a focus on those who were assessed to have damage that qualified as “Major” or “Destroyed.”
We had a short window of time, less than a week, to reach as many households as we could with financial assistance, supplies like clean-up kits, and disaster counseling. We primarily focused on deploying casework teams into the four most impacted counties – Brunswick, Dare, Hyde, and Carteret counties. We had a lot of success reaching people with our assistance in places like Avon and Frisco which are located on the Outer Banks.
I heard more than a few stories from clients who experienced immense loss, and who yet gained some small measure of comfort and hope in the presence of a Red Cross volunteer. We did not reach everyone last week – that was a tall order – but it’s encouraging to know that the Red Cross regional team in NC remains committed to helping the survivors of Hurricane Dorian.
As the people of North Carolina continue to move into their different phases of recovery, the local Red Cross region will take over pairing families with the resources they need. In those post-disaster times, it’s hard to relay to survivors that the Red Cross responds thanks to volunteers, donors, partners, and countless other helpers. It was humbling to see the work of all of us reflected in the appreciative faces of the people of North Carolina.
Kyle McWilliam-Lopez
Recovery and EMA Relationship Support Specialist
American Red Cross – Massachusetts Region
Sleeves Up, Hearts Open, All In 