Midwest Flooding: Water Takes Everything People Own

As more severe weather and flash flooding threatens, the American Red Cross remains on the ground in Missouri and Arkansas providing food and shelter for people impacted by the recent flooding. Almost 95 people are still in 6 shelters in the two states. Here are some of their stories:

MISSOURI - Nicole Vincent was with her two youngsters when the floodwater started creeping into her West Plains, Missouri mobile home. All she could do was wait for help to come. “It was really scary. I was just thinking about getting my children to safety and worrying about my family,” she said.

Finally, emergency responders got her and her children to the Red Cross shelter at the First Baptist Church. Like many others at the shelter, Vincent arrived with little more than the clothes on her back. Just about everything else was lost to the rising floodwater. She is already looking ahead, working with the Red Cross and its partners as she starts the recovery process. Her first priority is finding a new place to live.

“I want to stay in West Plains because this is where my home always has been and this where my family is,” she said.

ARKANSAS - Ashley Crow struggled to find the words to tell her story as tears rolled down her cheeks. Three generations of household items were ruined by the floodwaters. Everything she and her family owned, soaking wet and muddy, were piled up at the end of the driveway.

As we spoke with Crow, a neighbor handed her grandmother a family picture she found in a nearby mud puddle. “You have no idea how precious this is to me,” Crow sobbed. “I have very little to remember them by.”

Crow and her family were told to immediately evacuate their home on May 1 in Pocahontas, Arkansas as the flood waters began to rapidly rise. They grabbed a few items and sought shelter in the home of a friend. When they were finally able to safely return home on Friday, May 5, they were shocked to see their home and all of their belongings covered in mud and water.

“We are very thankful that the American Red Cross has been bringing us cold water and snacks as we clean this all up. Volunteers also encouraged us to go to the community shelter for our meals. The food was very good and given to us at no cost. It was so nice to be able to sit down to a nice hot meal and rest for a few minutes.”

The Red Cross is working with local and state officials to ensure people get the help they need. If someone needs to find a shelter, they can visit redcross.org, check the Red Cross Emergency App or call 1-800-768-8048.

In addition to shelters, Red Cross volunteers are providing food and relief items and health and mental health services. In some areas, Red Cross caseworkers are beginning to connect one-on-one with families now to create recovery plans and access additional support.

HOW YOU CAN HELP Hundreds of people across a large part of the country need your help now. Please click, text or call to donate to the Red Cross to help people affected by disasters big and small. Every single donation brings hope to those in need.

Make a donation today by visiting www.redcross.org, calling 1-800-RED CROSS or texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 gift.

Help people affected by disasters like severe storms and countless other crises by making a donation to support Red Cross Disaster Relief. These gifts enable the Red Cross to prepare for, respond to and help people recover from disasters big and small.

CORPORATIONS HELP The generous donations from members of the Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program (ADGP) and the Disaster Responder Program enable the American Red Cross to prepare communities for disasters big and small, respond whenever and wherever disasters occur and help families during the recovery process.

ADGP $1 Million members are: American Airlines; Anheuser-Busch Foundation; Anthem Foundation; Caterpillar Foundation; Costco Wholesale; Delta Air Lines; Disney; Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation; FedEx; General Motors Foundation; Grainger; The Home Depot Foundation; LDS Charities; Lowe's Companies, Inc.; Mazda North American Operations; Microsoft; Nationwide Foundation; State Farm; Target; UPS; VSP Global; Walmart and the Walmart Foundation; and The Wawa Foundation.

ADGP $500,000 members are: 3M; Altria Group; American Express; Aon; Bank of America; Boise Paper; Capital One; Cisco Foundation; Citi Foundation; Darden Restaurants, Inc. Foundation; Discover; Edison International; Farmers Insurance; Ford Motor Company; Humble Bundle; John Deere Foundation; Johnson Controls; McDonald’s Corporation; Medtronic Foundation; Meijer; Merck Foundation; Mondelez International Foundation; PepsiCo Foundation; Procter & Gamble Company; Reynolds American Foundation; Ryder; Southwest Airlines; Sprint; Sunoco; TD Ameritrade; The TJX Companies, Inc.; United Airlines; and Wells Fargo.

Disaster Responder Program members are: Adobe; Alcoa; Astellas USA Foundation; AT&T; AvalonBay Communities, Inc.; AXA; The Ball Foundation; BNY Mellon; CarMax; The Clorox Company; Cox Automotive; DTE Energy Foundation; Duke Energy; Entergy Corporation; Harbor Freight Tools; Hewlett Packard Enterprise Foundation; Hi-Rez Studios; HP Foundation; IBM Corporation; IHG Foundation; Ingersoll Rand Foundation; Land O’Lakes, Inc.; Mastercard; Morgan Stanley; Neiman Marcus Group; New Balance Foundation; Northrop Grumman Corporation; Northwestern Mutual and the Northwestern Mutual Foundation; Prudential Foundation; PuroClean Disaster Recovery; SC Johnson; ScriptRelief; SERVPRO; Southeastern Grocers Home of BI-LO Harveys Winn Dixie; T O Y O T A; U-Haul International; United Technologies Corporation; The USAA Foundation; U.S. Bank; and Visa.