How to actually help

The instinct to fill a car with water and blankets and drive it over is a good one. It is also, right now, the least useful thing you can do.

Please do not donate physical goods

The Red Cross has specifically asked the public not to donate items such as water, blankets or clothing.

Unsolicited goods have to be received, sorted, stored and disposed of by the same people who are running shelters. In the disaster response world this is well known enough to have a name — the “second disaster”. It consumes volunteers and warehouse space that are needed elsewhere.

What helps instead

Give money

Cash is the only donation that can become exactly what is short, bought locally, on the day it is needed.

Donate to the Red Cross

Or text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10, or call 1-800-733-2767.

Volunteer through the Red Cross

Real shifts, with training and coordination. Hundreds of people have already signed up locally.

Find a shift

Help one neighbour

A spare room, a truck, a washing machine, fostering a dog. This is the gap no agency fills, and it is what this site is for.

Offer what you have

A note on turning up

Please do not drive to a shelter, a staging area or a fire line to offer help in person unless you have been asked to. Spontaneous volunteers have to be screened, supervised and kept safe, which pulls trained responders away from the emergency.

This is also why we do not publish incident command posts or staging areas on our map, even though the county’s data includes them.