The American Red Cross is part of the world’s largest humanitarian movement – a network of more than 185
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and approximately 97 million members and volunteers. The Red Cross
works with partner organizations and an extensive network to rapidly and efficiently scale up activities to
achieve the greatest impact. Disaster Relief is guided by the seven fundamental principles of the International
Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service,
unity and universality.

The Red Cross responds to disasters of all kinds--single family fires, winter storms, hurricanes,
tornadoes, flooding and earthquakes. The Red Cross supports communities after events that force people to
evacuate, separate family members, damage or destroy homes, and injure or even kill people. Disaster response
is initiated when the range and level of immediate suffering and basic human needs cannot be promptly or
adequately addressed by the affected people, and when those affected are prevented from initiating and
proceeding with recovery efforts on their own.

The Red Cross is a private, non-profit organization that relies on the donations and voluntary efforts of the
American public to provide services. The Red Cross works in collaboration with the local community,
businesses, the faith community, labor, other non-profits and government agencies to provide a wide variety of
services to respond to disasters. While each disaster produces different needs, the main focus of the American
Red Cross relief efforts fall into the following areas: feeding, sheltering, distribution of needed supplies, health
and mental health services, client casework to provide for emergency needs, and family linking.

Structure: The Red Cross response to a disaster starts with local chapters. The chapters work together to
support each other through mutual aid agreements. When an incident requires a response that is too large for
the local grouping of chapters, the Red Cross National Headquarters augments the response with resources from
the region or from across the entire country. For these larger disasters, a Disaster Relief Operation (DRO) is
established to manage the response. The DRO is a management structure put in place to focus solely on the
needs of a specific disaster. The DRO has the authority to respond to the needs of the affected area, and it
receives guidance and support from National Headquarters.