Emergency Programs and Services

Disaster Emergency Services
Each year around the country, American Red Cross Chapters respond immediately to more than 70,000 disasters, including house or apartment fires (the majority of disaster responses), hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hazardous materials spills, transportation accidents, explosions, and other natural and man-made disasters.

During the last 12 months, the Savannah Chapter of the Red Cross responded to 489 families that were affected by disasters right here in our own communities. Trained Red Cross volunteers met the immediate disaster caused needs of these families by providing food, shelter, clothing and health and mental health services to address their basic human needs. These volunteers are on-call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to reach out to our neighbors in need.

Red River Flooding

Three local volunteers responded to the call for help in Fargo, ND. On Saturday, all three volunteers boarded planes to Fargo, to help the victims of the Red River Flooding. Since the beginning of this operation, 718 Red Cross volunteers have opened 9 shelters, served 182,993 meals and snacks, offered emotional support to over 2,219 folks and helped 1,445 people with their medical needs.

The victims of this diaster need your help! Please contribute to the Diaster Relief fund. This fund is the lifeline that allows us to help victims of diasters anywhere, anytime. It provides funding for food, shelter, counceling and other assistance, as well as, the vehicles, warehouses, call centers and people that make that relief possible. To donate, simply call 1-800-REDCROSS (1-800-733-2767) or send your contributions to American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. To view pictures from Fargo, click here.

Disaster Assistance
Are you a disaster victim in need of assistance?

During office hours (Mon–Fri from 9:00am-5:00pm) please contact your local branch:

• Chatham Branch (Serving Chatham, Bryan, Effingham Counties) 912-651-5300
• Liberty Branch (Serving Liberty, Long, Bacon, Ware, Pierce Counties) 912-876-3975
• Evans Branch (Serving Evans, Tattnall, Emanuel, Screven Counties) 912-739-7632
• Coastal Plain Branch (Serving Tifton, Atkinson, Ben Hill, Berrien, Clinch coffee, Irwin, Turner, Pierce Counties) 229-382-3133

After hours, please contact our Emergency Services 24-hour call center at (888) 737-4306 for disaster services. Select option 6 for disaster services. This call center initiates our local Disaster Action Team (DAT) response.

Looking for a family member? To look for a friend or family member who may be involved in a disaster outside of our local area, click here.

For monetary donations
Please contact 912-651-5300 or click here to donate online to the Savannah Chapter of the American Red Cross.

VOAD
The Savannah Red Cross is an active member, across our 20 county service delivery area, with many local organizations known as Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD). These VOAD’s have membership representation from many local, state and national organizations.

The purpose of VOAD is to meet community needs in the wake of a large-scale disaster through cooperation, coordination, communication and collaboration. VOAD coordinates planning efforts and matches community needs with services provided by member VOAD agencies. This cooperative effort has proven to be the most effective way for a wide variety of organizations to work together in a crisis.

2008-2009 Chatham County VOAD Partner Membership

Disaster Action Teams (DATs)
Disaster Action Team (DATs) members are the Chapter’s first responders to disasters. Our teams rotate being
on-call and are responsible for responding during the hours the Chapter is closed. In addition, several of our responders have volunteered to be available to respond during the day and are now part or our Daytime DAT.

This system enables the Chapter to respond to disasters 24 hours a day 365 days a year. To become a DAT member, a new volunteer must go thru an orientation and receive training. Disaster volunteers can respond to disasters just in their communities or, they can travel outside our chapter jurisdiction to large-scale disasters, such as, Hurricane Ike or to wildfires in California.

For more information on how to become a DAT member, contact Alison Maruca at 912-651-5321.