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18 volunteers from The Greater Ozarks Chapter of the American Red Cross are headed to Arkansas, where tornadoes and flooding have left several families homeless and in need of meals and shelter. KSMU's Jennifer Moore has details.
Tornadoes swept through the north-central part of The Natural State Friday night, as well as parts of southern Missouri.
The local volunteers will assess damage, act as caseworkers, and provide meals and snacks to those who lost their homes.
Joann Moore, a spokesperson for the local Red Cross chapter, says the local volunteers will start out in Little Rock.
“That’s going to be kind of the staging area for them,” Moore said. “They will report to, probably, a chapter in Little Rock, and then from there they will be given their assignments to various locations to where there has been devastation from the tornadoes or the flooding.”
She said the Red Cross is also helping several families in Ozark County in southern Missouri who also lost homes from that same storm system Friday.
“Four families were helped with temporary shelter, food and clothing. Two of the families, their places were destroyed. And two of them had major damage [to] their homes,” Moore said.
According to the National Weather Service, the tornado that ripped through northern Arkansas Friday night had a 20-mile long path. It killed one person in Scotland, Arkansas.
Although tornadoes can happen any time of the year if conditions are right, the peak period for tornadoes in the southern plains is between early May and early June.
For KSMU News, I'm Jennifer Moore.