By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Hundreds of American Red Cross volunteers are in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and even Tennessee, responding to the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
The American Red Cross of Missouri and Arkansas has 43 disaster responders on the ground. Twelve are from the Kansas City and Northwest Missouri Chapter.
Volunteer Kim Mailes of Neosho is in Clearwater, Florida, reporting that though Helene left destruction there, she did more damage as she moved on.
“We have levels of disaster in the Red Cross. A Level 1 is a home fire. A Level 7 is a Katrina,” Mailes tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post in a phone interview. “In North Carolina right now, they’ve got a Level 7 going on. It’s just a 150-year event. It’s just catastrophic.”
Hurricane Helene has cut a 500-mile path of destruction leaving millions without basic necessities. The death toll has topped 160 with more expected.
“I think we were fortunate here. I’m not a meteorologist, but I think we were fortunate here in Florida in that it passed through fairly quickly,” Mailes says. “That’s not to say there’s not a lot of damage here. There is. Some areas are just obliterated. But then as the hurricane made its way up the Eastern Seaboard and into North Carolina, it slowed down and just hovered and just dumped biblical proportions of rain which is causing tremendous problems.”
Still, Florida took some very tough losses as Hurricane Helene began its path of destruction.
“I want to give you an example,” Mailes says. “Yesterday, I was in Cedar Key, Florida, which is a small town on the coast, about 30 miles from any nearest town. The town has just really been wiped off the map. They have no power. They have no food. They have no water and the only grocery store in town was destroyed completely by the hurricane.”
The American Red Cross has a more than 900 volunteers on the ground, helping with recovery efforts.
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