Red Cross emergency response
$1.6 million delivered 24/7 support during the floods – enabling trained emergency response team members and volunteers to help with evacuations, relief centres, and outreach services across Qld and NSW.
People have experiences previously with Red Cross, in the 2017 floods where they see us and saw us do some great things. And that’s attributed to the volunteers on the ground, just working hard. A lot of them are people who are hurting, and have been through the same sort of stuff as the people they’re volunteering for.
Some people were very hard to calm because it had just been too overwhelming. And some of those people had nothing or very little to start with and had lost the little that they had. It’d be like us, like me losing the whole house, just losing it. I can imagine how that would feel.
Our response in numbers
Jan, from West Ballina
“Everybody else has been so helpful, you know. Everybody.”
Jan and Ian were evacuated in the middle of the night as floodwaters reached their home in West Ballina. With only the clothes on their back, they were supported by Red Cross volunteers in an evacuation centre with psychological first aid and registered through Register.Find.Reunite so their loved ones would know they were safe. Volunteer Jo was able to go back to their house and save Jan’s wedding dress, albums, photos and other sentimental items, and she also brought them clothes to wear.
Red Cross pays our respects to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander custodians of the country where we work, and to Elders, past, present and emerging.
Learn about our Reconciliation Action Plan and how we can all make reconciliation real.
This website may contain the images, voices or names of people who have passed away.