Snapshot
This week Red Cross teams have been:
- supporting people at evacuation and relief centres
- registering people so their loved ones can contact them
- providing psychological first aid to reduce trauma and distress
- providing food, water and relief items to people cut off by fires in Victoria
- conducting welfare checks on the phone and in-person
- providing emergency grants to people who have lost homes to bushfires
In Victoria, our teams are now supporting people at nine relief centres. They are providing food and water at all the centres and coordinating a further 800 food hampers plus water, hygiene kits and pet supplies to be delivered to people in Mallacoota. As well they are helping get satellite phones to 18 communities who are isolated due to power issues in East Gippsland.
In New South Wales, our teams are now supporting people at five evacuation centres and providing information at six disaster welfare points. They are also conducting needs assessments in the most-affected communities and supporting people facing language barriers.
In South Australia, teams are supporting people at the Lobethal Recovery Hub and the Kingscote Relief Centre in Kangaroo Island. They have been attending community meetings where they provide psychological first aid and have also been checking in on people’s welfare via telephone.
In Western Australia, teams are now supporting people affected by a bushfire at Toodyay and registering people affected by bushfires as well as Cyclone Blake. Teams are also conducting outreach with people affected by fires in December.
Grants are currently open across Australia for people whose primary place of residence has been destroyed or made uninhabitable by the fires since July 2019.