The office of the Southern Missouri Chapter of the American Red Cross, located in Springfield, has been especially busy since the Memorial Day weekend brought severe storms and tornadoes to Missouri and Arkansas.
Since the storms hit, the Springfield office at 1545 N. West Bypass has served as the American Red Cross’ Regional Disaster Headquarters — a hub for volunteers, response planning and coordination and supply distribution.
Executive Director Stacy Burks explained it made sense for the Springfield office to be converted into the headquarters for this particular disaster for several reasons, including its proximity to the Springfield-Branson National Airport, its warehouse that is ready to accept supplies and its fleet of box trucks ready to ship supplies to storm-damaged communities.
The American Red Cross normally would have used the Red Cross Office in Rogers, Arkansas, to respond to disasters in this part of the country — but that office was damaged by a tornado May 26.
Nearly 130 volunteers from all over the United States are responding to the areas in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas that were impacted by the strong storms.
Doug Patriquin, a volunteer from Phoenix, Arizona, was among those who traveled from several states away to help those impacted by the Memorial Day weekend storms.
Patriquin is retired and has been volunteering with the disaster relief organization for nearly a decade. Patriquin said he’s served in a variety of volunteer roles for Red Cross, usually roles that involve traveling to disaster-impacted areas for weeks at a time.
His wife also volunteers with the Red Cross, but she prefers to stay close to home in Arizona.
“She helps with our Disaster Action Team program as a nurse,” Patriquin said, adding that she primarily responds to house fires and such to help disaster victims with health services needs.
All this to say the Red Cross has a variety of volunteer jobs to choose from, Patriquin said.
“And if you don’t like the first one you try,” he said, “there’s plenty of other ones to try.”
Frequency and intensity of storms increasing
The Red Cross is responding to nearly twice as many large disasters in the United States as it did a decade ago. In the first half of 2023, the Red Cross responded to 15 disasters that caused more than a billion dollars in damages each.
According to Kim Mailes, American Red Cross Public Affairs Manager, both the frequency and intensity of storms have increased significantly in recent years.
“Not only are there a lot more of them, they are much broader in scope and require more operations,” Mailes said of the storms.
He then explained how the Red Cross rates disasters using a numerical scale: A single-family home fire is a 1 and a disaster similar to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was considered a 7.
“We used to have one, maybe two 7s a year,” Mailes said. “Now we are running four, five and six 7s each year.”
Asked how the increase of dangerous storms is impacting the pool of volunteers, Mailes and Burks answered in unison:
“We need volunteers.”
Wide range of volunteer ‘jobs’ available
Mailes said when someone expresses an interest in volunteering with the Red Cross, one of the first things that happens is figuring out what types of jobs pique their interest. Then, the Red Cross provides extensive training.
On the Red Cross website, users can search the list of volunteer positions or take a short quiz designed to help figure out what type of volunteer positions is best suited for them.
Jobs range from providing assistance directly to those impacted by disasters to behind-the-scenes positions, like IT support, fundraising and communications.
“We’ve got spiritual care leaders from different denominations who provide spiritual care,” Burks said. “We also have mental health care professionals who provide mental health services.”
Many volunteers choose positions that involve traveling to communities impacted by disasters. The Red Cross pays for all costs associated with their travels, including hoteling, meals and transportation.
But for those not interested in traveling, the Red Cross has jobs that keep people close to their homes.
About 90% of the disasters the Red Cross responds to are house fires that often happen in the middle of the night, Burks said.
“Just off the top of my head, we’ve had probably close to over half a dozen home fires in the time since the Memorial Day storm here in our 25 counties in southern Missouri,” Burks said on Friday, June 7, 2024. “We need volunteers who are able to respond to those. While our volunteers are out doing damage assessment or providing supplies or helping with the few shelters that we opened (for the storms), we still have to have those volunteers here who can make that visit to somebody who’s lost their home.
“It may not be as newsworthy as a tornado, but they still have a loss,” Burks continued. “That’s just as important as anybody in a tornado. It’s just a really important scenario. Those volunteers each and every night serve a huge purpose.”
Red Cross volunteer: ‘It brings me joy’
Carol Stafford was one of those nearly 130 volunteers who traveled from across the country to help with the response to the Memorial Day weekend storms in Missouri and Arkansas.
Stafford, who is from Alabama and has been volunteering with the organization for five years, said her normal volunteer gig is responding to house fires.
Stafford said she was ‘inspired to give back” because when her daughter was ill a few years back, she found herself needing help from other organizations.
“It brings me joy to know that I’m able to go out and assist people,” Stafford said. “You are able to uplift them, at least give them something to start back — give them the conversation and hugs and love to let them know it’s going to be okay.”
