Getting the Help you Need After a Disaster

This was a sponsored post written by me on behalf of American Red Cross. All opinions are 100% mine.

No one ever things they will experience a disaster. For those of us who have been there, I’m so glad the American Red Cross is there to help.

We hear of disasters all the time, but very few of us expect to ever experience one first hand.

I know I didn’t.

That’s why, when I first saw smoke starting to form in the distance through my my family room window, I didn’t think much of it. I had bigger things to worry about. I was very busy being parked on my couch, pregnant with twins and on bedrest.

I saw the smoke, but I put it in the back of my mind.

It wasn’t until our power began to flicker that I thought to wonder what was going on.

I looked out the window again, and was shocked to see, not smoke, but flames popping up behind the row of houses directly across the street.

What followed was 2o minutes of chaos. Fortunately, my husband was working from home that day. We spend a few minutes wondering whether or not we should think about packing a few things up in case we needed to leave when we heard the police car driving down the street and making an announcement that our street was evacuated, effective immediately.

I was on strict orders not to leave the couch on threat of hospital bedrest, but as soon I heard that, I jumped up and started running/waddling through my house trying to grab the things that were most important to me just in case those flames made it to our house.

At this point, we had no idea what was going on in our community.

• We didn’t know that this fire was not limited to the dry canyon behind our neighborhood.
• We did not know that the elementary school had been evacuated with kids running from 50 foot flames that were creeping onto the school field.
• We did not know that several homes were already burning.

At the time, we only knew that we had to leave.

We packed up what we could as fast as we could. My 4 kids were running around the house grabbing their favorite stuffed animals and toys with tears running down their cheeks because all they knew was there was a fire close by and it was coming towards our house.

A good friend, who had been driving by, pulled into our driveway. She saw the fire coming and realized we were in the evacuation zone. As one of the sweet helpers who had been like an angel to my family during my pregnancy, she knew I shouldn’t be running around loading up a car, so she turned around and headed straight for our house.

The three of us loaded everything we could into her car and both of ours.

We pulled pictures off the walls and grabbed hard drives. Anything that wasn’t replaceable got loaded into the cars.

By the time we left, ash was falling on my house. We took one last look and drove away.

It felt like the world was on fire.

We lived in a coastal area and the only way to go to get away from the flames was towards the beach. Roads were backed up for miles as people tried to get out and enormous flames jumped the roads and tore through the community.

Once safely at my friend’s home, we were able to turn on the news for the first time. We were shocked at what we saw.

They were calling it the Poinsettia Fire.

It had spread through the canyons that ran between the homes. How a fire that large grew to that size in a residential area was something we could not wrap our mind around. At one point, the news showed the fire line as past our neighborhood and we were sure our home was gone.

In the end, we were able to return home after 3 days. Just after that, I ended up hospitalized with my twin pregnancy because I was going into labor. We were very fortunate that they were able to stop things and we got another 5 weeks until they were born, but it was a crazy week for us.

What happens After a Disaster?

The aftermath of the fire was huge for my community. We were lucky. Our home was spared. Other than a bit of lingering smoke inside and any loads of laundry to get the smell out of sheets and clothes, we didn’t have to do much.

Friends in the community were not that lucky. Some lost their homes. Others had extensive smoke damage and were unable to live in their home for months.

During that time, the American Red Cross stepped in and helped anyway they could.

In the days after the fire, they provided shelter, food, clothing, and emotional support to the families and community members who had been forced to leave their homes.

They also continued to provide long-term support to those who were hit the hardest by the fire.

Our community was lucky to have them there and looking back on the experience, I love remembering all the acts of service that were done by the American Red Cross and other members of the community.

How can you help?

Nearly every eight minutes, the American Red Cross meets a family that has lost everything to a home fire or other disaster—the roof over their heads, their clothes, their most cherished possessions.

We came close to losing it all. I can’t imagine what that must be like.

You can help.

By giving financially you can help the Red Cross support families in need.

A gift of just $88.50 can provide a family with a day’s worth of food, plus blankets and other essentials. Make an impact. #help1family.

Visit redcross.org/givingday to learn more. 

GIVE NOW. Your donations now will support Red Cross Giving Day which is raising money to help support families after disasters big and small.