‘I have to go’: North Carolina Red Cross volunteers head to Georgia following deadly storms

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Zonia Quero-Ziada does not thoughts serving to a neighbor in want. Even when that neighbor is a couple of hundred miles away.

“I stated, I’ve to go,” stated Quero-Ziada.

She’s a Crimson Cross volunteer headed to a different deployment after seeing the heartbreaking photos of harm and destruction following the lethal tornadoes that ripped by the South, affecting communities in Georgia and Alabama.

“Once I noticed Selma, I imply, Selma, my coronary heart broke,” stated Quero-Ziada, who had simply visited the Alabama city a number of months in the past.

“The tornadoes went by a straight line to many locations, and Georgia was one of many ones hit as nicely,” she continued.

Quero-Ziada, who has been deployed to a minimum of 30 pure catastrophe websites, left for Georgia on Monday night, the place the highly effective storms, uprooted bushes, leveled buildings and destroyed properties leaving a whole bunch of households with nothing.

Hundreds are nonetheless with out energy and no assets to feed their household or shelter to sleep. However that is the place the America Crimson Cross steps in and volunteers equivalent to Quero-Ziada make a distinction.

“The second they see that Crimson Cross van, individuals begin crying, individuals begin applauding, they stated, now we all know we’ll be OK; the Crimson Cross is right here. And I’m only a tiny little piece of it. And it strikes me to know that individuals are relying on me,” Quero-Ziada stated.

Barry Porter, the regional CEO of the Crimson Cross Japanese North Carolina stated the Crimson Cross is concentrated on well being, starvation and housing. When volunteers arrive within the affected communities, they may work to offer meals, arrange shelters, and discover assets to assist get households again on their ft.

“We all know that folks have been bodily impacted, there have been accidents and lack of life. Second, then is the necessity for hungry individuals, energy’s out, and over 6,000 households within the Georgia space that was affected are nonetheless with out energy. So needing meals distribution provides and supplies distributed to them,” Porter stated.

The CEO additionally defined how emotional help is simply as necessary because the assets volunteers are offering

“Catastrophe psychological well being and resiliency could be simply as necessary typically as changing one thing misplaced,” Porter stated.

Quero-Ziada and different volunteers discovered firsthand in regards to the energy of emotional help to catastrophe victims after her first deployment to Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina.

“When all the pieces else fell. I do know a hug could be very helpful,” she stated. “And I realized that in Katrina the worth of a hug.”