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West Ky Red Cross Volunteers En-Route to Aid Harvey Recovery, How You Can Help

American Red Cross, Western KY Chapter via Facebook

American Red Cross volunteers from Paducah and Owensboro are en-route to aid in tropical storm Harvey recovery efforts in Texas and Louisiana. 

Western Kentucky Chapter Executive Director Evelyn Miller says more volunteers from Fulton and McCracken Counties are departing soon. She said within the next seven to 10 days, about 10 people from the region will be in Texas or Louisiana. 

Miller expects recovery efforts will take at least five to eight months, possibly longer. "This will be a long recovery and a long response time for the Red Cross. It wouldn't surprise me that we still have volunteers there a year from now," she said.

Miller said the Red Cross has dozens of shelters open in Texas and Louisiana. Those interested in volunteering can go to RedCross.org.

She urges people to send monetary donations or blood instead of items like clothing that may not make it to the right place. She said even if they do, they may end up in large, unusable mounds. "During Hurricane Katrina there was a shopping center where I was deployed that had a mound of clothes half the length of a shopping center and probably 12-feet high. That clothing ended up having to be destroyed because it wasn't able to be processed," she said.

The items could also become a disaster in of themselves, she said, as it can place a burden on volunteers who need to process the materials whereas money can be used to fund specific things as needed.

She added that if someone wants to send to an organization other than Red Cross to do research and be certain the agency is credible and is doing what they say they are doing.

Matt Markgraf joined the WKMS team as a student in January 2007. He's served in a variety of roles over the years: as News Director March 2016-September 2019 and previously as the New Media & Promotions Coordinator beginning in 2011. Prior to that, he was a graduate and undergraduate assistant. He is currently the host of the international music show Imported on Sunday nights at 10 p.m.
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