Immediate Help at Your Home

Crisis Cleanup is the shared hotline that faith-based and voluntary disaster organizations use to coordinate after storms. You call once, describe what you need, and your address goes onto a map that participating relief groups work from.

They can often help with: cutting and removing fallen trees, tarping a damaged roof, removing debris, and hauling out wet or destroyed contents.

This is completely free. Volunteers are not paid and will never ask you for money. Anyone who quotes you a price is not with Crisis Cleanup.

Two honest caveats: help is not guaranteed and depends on how many volunteer teams reach the area, and it can take days. Call as early as you can. Keep working your insurance claim in parallel — do not wait on volunteers.

The Red Cross typically opens or supports shelters, distributes meals and cleanup kits, and provides casework for households whose homes are destroyed or badly damaged — including some immediate financial assistance.

Call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or use the mobile app to find services near you.

Phones and power are out across the damage path, so silence very often just means a dead battery. But if someone is elderly, lives alone, is medically fragile, or was known to be home when the tornado hit, do not sit on it.

• Call 911 if you have specific reason to think they are hurt or trapped
• Otherwise contact the police department for their community and request a welfare check. Have the full address, a description, and any medical conditions ready
• Ask a neighbor to physically knock, if anyone can get there safely — this is by far the fastest method

Please reserve 911 for genuine concern. Departments are running at capacity.

A roof left open turns a repairable house into a gutted one, and insurers expect you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage.

Before you cover anything, photograph and video everything — wide shots and close-ups, inside and out. That documentation is the basis of your claim, and once a tarp is on, the original damage is invisible to an adjuster.

Then:

• Keep every receipt for tarps, lumber, fasteners and labour. Emergency mitigation is normally reimbursable
• Free tarping help may be available through Crisis Cleanup (844-965-1386)
• Do not go on a roof yourself if it is wet, steep, structurally questionable, or if there is any wire nearby. Falls are the second-biggest source of post-tornado injuries after cuts. This is worth paying someone for