Disaster Services is the Flagship of the American Red Cross
If you need immediate disaster related assistance, please call an
American Red Cross caseworker 24 hours a day at
(505) 265-8514  or  1-800-560-2302

A Red Cross Volunteer checks on victims of the Eastern New Mexico Tornados

We are proud to serve disaster victims both locally and nationally. We're happy you stopped by today to learn more about these programs and services, and perhaps even to become a new volunteer!

Providing immediate relief to victims of disaster is a requirement of every American Red Cross chapter. And the Mid-Rio Grande Chapter is available to respond to those victims 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Our trained response staff - 95% of whom are volunteers! - stand ready to meet the immediate needs of food, shelter, clothing, medication replacement, and mental health counseling for people who are displaced from their primary dwelling by disasters such as fire, flood, winter storm, tornado, etc. In the last year, we've responded to assist 204 families impacted by single-family disasters, most of which never make the evening news or get coverage in the local papers. But our work doesn't begin or end here.

To keep us fully prepared to respond to the needs of disaster victims, our staff is continually pursuing training opportunities, and is an integral part of many task forces and work groups. These task forces and work groups meet regularly to make sure that as emergency responders, we can work as partners to provide assistance for larger disasters that can occur right here in our local community. And after disaster strikes, and those affected are taken care of, our work with our emergency management partners continues-- so that we are even better prepared for the next disaster. And we need to be prepared, because disasters don't discriminate: they can happen at any time, to anyone, anywhere.

When those disasters strike outside our local area, we are also ready to respond. The Mid-Rio Grande Chapter is proud to have over 45 specially trained and experienced disaster staff who are ready to respond to disasters anywhere in the United States, and who are able to deploy to the disaster scene within 24 hours of being notified their skills and abilities are needed. These deployments occur regularly wherever and whenever large scale disasters occur.

And you, too, can become a part of our local disaster response system by becoming a Red Cross volunteer. We provide orientation and training, the opportunity to observe responses, and then to actually become part of one of our Disaster Action Teams (DAT). To explore these opportunities, we encourage you to visit our Volunteer Opportunities page for general information on current volunteer opportunities, and also to look at our Disaster Training page for a peek at the types of training available to disaster staff.