When Hurricane Sandy battered the Northeast on October 29, 2012, every community in its 1,000-mile wide path suffered. High winds, rain, and storm surges destroyed or damaged more than 80,000 residences, and left 8.5 million people in the cold and dark, without power.
Americares responded immediately, dispatching teams of relief workers to hard-hit areas, sending aid shipments, providing emergency funding, and deploying a mobile medical clinic to help communities in desperate need. In the first 10 days, our large-scale disaster response provided emergency supplies that helped more than 70,000 survivors, and awarded $150,000 in funding.
in aid, benefiting more than 450,000 people.
In the first hours our response reached across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Immediately Americares mobile medical clinic set up outside damaged clinics in four New York locations in the Bronx, Rockaway, Queens and Staten Island allowing the clinics to serve patients for a total of 95 days until power was restored or repairs made. In addition we provided $3.5 million in medicines and relief supplies to hard-hit communities to support health care services and provide necessities to people displaced by the storm, $3.0 million in funding to organizations providing critical care and services to survivors. We also helped residents in hard-hit areas by subsidizing care for the uninsured, providing transportation to health centers, holding health fairs and funding clinics so their doors remained open
After Hurricane Sandy struck the Northeast, Americares created pathways to health and opportunity for survivors struggling to put their lives back together. Even as the physical effects of the storm disappeared from the landscape, we worked alongside community partners to meet long term recovery needs and strengthen emergency readiness to be better prepared in the face of future crises. We set four goals for our response and recovery and we focused our work around them:
1. Meet immediate needs.
2. Restore access to health care services.
3 Addressing long-term health needs, with particular focus on mental health counseling to help survivors cope with trauma and loss. Mental health services are often one of the most significant unmet needs after large disasters, especially the mental health of children and our experience in Hurricane Sandy has allowed us to expand our work in this critical health area.
4. Help communities prepare for future disasters.