‘Entire neighborhoods being wiped out’: Area Red Cross volunteers among those responding to Helena’s devastation

Western New York volunteers with the American Cross are among those who have traveled south to help with recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene. The storm now has killed more than 220 people, making it the deadliest storm since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“I think that we’re looking at some of the devastation here as possibly the worst since Katrina,” Michael Tedesco, director of communications with Red Cross of Western New York, said. “We expect to be there for months providing relief.”

The Red Cross has 1,400 volunteers in different places where the storm hit, with 25 of them from the Rochester area. Most of the volunteers there are working to shelter and feed the survivors.

Tedesco says typically the people they send stay in hotels and have hot meals to eat, but in this situation, that isn’t the case.

“They’re likely staying in the same shelters that people who have been impacted by the storm are doing. So it’s cots. It’s meals prepared for mass consumption. So it’s not a vacation by any means,” Tedesco said.

The Red Cross has sent many trailers full of food and water for people forced out of their homes. But it’s more than just providing supplies; they have people there trained to deal with the mental and emotional toll as well.

“You’re hearing stories about entire neighborhoods being wiped out by storm surge. You know, one of the areas that we provide relief in is called spiritual care. So those are people who, in their day to day work, are trained therapists and counselors,” Tedesco said.

Several of these communities are cut off from the outside world. Something that may get forgotten in all the chaos and disaster is the fact that the Red Cross is an organization that collects and distributes blood, something the storm impacted as well.

“That need never goes away. Trauma patients, cancer patients require those blood products on a daily basis. And unfortunately, because of the storm, we’ve lost hundreds of drives and the number of lost blood units collected is in the thousands,” Tedesco said.

Tedesco tells News10NBC donating blood can be extremely helpful right now. They also are expecting the recovery to take a very long time, and a lot of money.

You can financially donate by clicking here or by texting “HELENE” to 90999.

A.I. assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how WHEC News 10 uses A.I.