Response to deadly storms in Alabama and California continued this week, with caches of medical aid departing Direct Relief’s warehouse to equip and assist first responders and medical providers. Multiple tornadoes swept through Alabama and Georgia last week, killing at least nine people and damaging hundreds of homes.
The tornado cut a wide path through Selma, Alabama, where Rural Health Medical Program is located, a community health center that requested medicines from Direct Relief after the storm.
Shipments departed Tuesday for Rural Health, and included specifically requested chronic disease medications for diabetes and asthma, medications for high blood pressure, antibiotics, and more.
Continued Response to California Storms
Deliveries of medical aid continued through the weekend to areas of California impacted by winter storms and flooding. Direct Relief has been actively offering support to storm-impacted communities and delivered medication support to the County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency on Saturday. That organization has been receiving shipments of medications and supplies for the past five years from Direct Relief, primarily for its Homeless Persons Health Project.
Through a contact there, Direct Relief was able to provide medical support for the county’s emergency operations center, which was supporting multiple shelters and temporary evacuation centers housing several hundred people. Direct Relief staff delivered emergency medicines, field medic packs for triage care outside of clinic walls, overdose-reversing naloxone, personal care items for displaced people, pen lights, and air purifiers.
Other deliveries were prepped on Tuesday, including the County of Santa Barbara Public Health, Doctors without Walls – Santa Barbara Street Medicine, SLO Noor Foundation, a free clinic serving patients in San Luis Obispo County and northern Santa Barbara County, Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas, which has 13 health centers in the Salinas Valley and greater Monterey Bay, and Rotacare Bay Area which has ten free clinics in Northern and Central California.
Direct Relief will continue filling medical requests and has provided financial support for impacted groups as well as emergency response equipment for first responders.
