Disaster Services Information
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Emergency Services and Disaster Response
The Emergency Services department within the Greater Kansas City Chapter is responsible for managing the people and resources necessary to respond to local, regional and national disasters. The Chapter, which responds to a disaster every 24 hours, provides warm meals, dry clothing and safe shelters for the people affected. We respond to everything from house fires to tornadoes.
The Red Cross response always starts at the local chapter. If our Chapter needs additional people and resources, we seek help from partner organizations and other Red Cross chapters in the vicinity. If a local disaster becomes too large for our Chapter to handle effectively, we secure more resources with the help of American Red Cross national headquarters.
Our .jpg) Local Response
Our Chapter provides direct assistance to individuals affected by man-made or natural disasters, ranging from single-family home fires to larger events such as floods, tornadoes and winter storms.
We designed our disaster services support to minimize the immediate suffering caused by the disaster by providing food, clothing and shelter, and medical, nursing and mental health assistance. Trained Red Cross disaster responders are available 24 hours a day to meet the immediate needs of families affected by disasters.
Emergency assistance is intended to bridge the gap between what each individual or family is able to accomplish alone and what is actually needed to begin rebuilding their lives. The Red Cross is a charitable organization – not a government agency – and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its humanitarian mission.
Regional and National Response
Our Chapter's response to a regional or national disaster is determined at the national level. National headquarters sends out a list of needed volunteers to each chapter. We then determine if we have available volunteers on our roster that meet the specific requirements. We send our list of eligible members to national headquarters, and it selects responders from that list.
Volunteers submitting themselves for national deployment must be available for a three-week period (plus travel time). Nurses serving in Health Services or Staff Health, and mental health professionals serving in Disaster Mental Health are expected to serve for two weeks.
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