I want to bring in now our next guest Sean enow he is the executive director of the red cross's Western Los Angeles chapter and joins us from their Westwood Recreation Center shelter in Los Angeles thank you for being here and for the good work that you're doing it's just devastating seeing that seeing where Lilia was tell us how dire is the situation what are people telling you well you heard it right this is the wor natural disaster the city has ever seen we're seeing thousands of homes destroyed and we're not going to know what that
total devastation is going to look like until this fire is extinguished and the red flag warnings let these firefighters actually do some containment so we're seeing families here evacuate with just what's in their hands sometimes they had a little bit more time to prepare um because of the great advanced warning systems that we have here in Los Angeles we were able to make sure we had standby shifts of volunteers and shelters available City County state federal Partners have been amazing in getting folks what they need so our priorities still remain emergency shelter feeding Comfort both
physical and emotional while addressing some medical needs here for the folks that are showing up at our shelters and we saw at least one dog in the background behind you we know that people have been fleeing with their pets in some cases that has posed such a a such a challenge um talk to us about the resources that you have on the ground how you're able to provide for the various uh needs of of the people that you're serving yeah family members are also people's pets right so we have a small animal shelter here set
up at the Westwood Rec Center most of our shelters either accept small pets or if you do have large pets there are large pet shelters across the valley folks can check out those either on the watch juty app or they can visit redcross.org to find those shelters and they have things like the basic food litter crates um any water bowls there's some treats folks have been bringing by dog toys um the showing from the community has been fantastic while we're going through all this Devastation it's been it's been uh I've I've gained some hope in
seeing the the turnout from the Los angelinos here that's actually really lovely to hear that there is some hope amid all this Devastation Sean um we know that the conditions are better for firefighters but it is still spreading are you concerned about uh any potential uh additional issues that your teams are facing in the area What specifically do you need he mentioned it right so we we're ready to scale right so if these fires turn if more folks are evacuated and lose their homes we have troops on the way and volunteers are getting trained locally
here the three the best ways of support are by visiting redcross.org to make a financial contribution to give blood or to sign up to become a disaster volunteer we'll get you background checked we'll get you trained and all the resources you need this operation is going to be ongoing and its Dynamic so we want to tell folks to stay home stay safe you're already getting called if you're a disaster volunteer with the Red Cross um and to thank the folks that have already turned turned up to support what we're doing and such a good reminder
that even for those of us here who can't physically show up as a volunteer we can still register um to be volunteers for other disasters but also to donate thank you so much Sean enway thanks so much
