Hurricane Season 2010

Note: The following appeal is now closed.  You can support our ongoing work by donating to the Canadian Red Cross

 

Early November, Hurricane Tomas struck the Lesser Antilles, affecting approximately 1,900 homes, provoking landslides, interrupting water services for over 30,000 people, and causing infrastructure damage, as well as electricity and communications disruption through the Caribbean Islands of Barbados, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Local Red Cross volunteers are on the ground supporting search and rescue efforts and distributing relief supplies. The International Red Cross is supporting their efforts with additional emergency supplies and personnel, and supporting water distribution and shelter activities.

Hurricanes and the subsequent wind damage, flooding and landslides, impact the Americas every year. The Red Cross works with communities throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, the United States and Canada to prepare for hurricanes and tropical storms so that communities are better able to respond and to mitigate the risks.

Your donation will help support emergency response operations underway in communities affected by this year’s hurricane season.

In-kind donations of food, clothing and other items, while well intentioned, are not the best way to help those in need. There are tremendous processing and transportation costs involved in shipping these items to beneficiaries. Local purchases of food and clothing are more culturally appropriate and effective. Red Cross supplies can be purchased in the immediate area, thereby reducing transportation costs. Cash transfers to the affected region provide the optimum flexibility to our Red Cross colleagues so they can meet the most urgent needs.