ORANGE, Texas — Southeast Texas is on alert to help travelers from Louisiana who are traveling here to take shelter form Tropical Storm Francine.
The executive director of Southeast and Deep East Texas American Red Cross says they are privileged to aid Louisiana because they are always there to help Texas recover from a bad storm.
"I like staying here, and helping get stuff ready to get sent over to where it's going to be deployed," said Red Cross volunteer Stacy O'Quinn.
O'Quinn has been volunteering with the American Red Cross Southeast Texas chapter for 13 years.
She's spent 20 hours over the last month preparing for a storm like Francine.
"We are doing shelter agreement boxes. That's really all of the information that we need to ask the clients when they come in, we fill those out for them," said O'Quinn.
The boxes given away at the shelter contain resources needed to recover from the storms.
"We then tell them what we have setup here in the shelter. Like blankets, cots, food that we'll be giving them. We try to help them in any way to find a place to stay after they leave the shelter," said O'Quinn.
The non-profit is doing its best to keep everyone facing the storm prepared.
"Our emergency response vehicle will be here, and it will deploy out based upon where the need arises. If it's here in our chapter it'll be here, if it's somewhere else in the region it'll go," said Natalie Warren, Executive Director of Southeast and Deep East Texas American Red Cross.
Those vehicles will carry hot food, comfort kits, cleanup kits and more. Red Cross volunteers are getting shelters ready for guests.
"We have two that are right now, moving assets to move from Liberty County a shelter trailer, to Nederland to a church there. Just to be prepared in case we have anybody who needs to come through that's able to stay and have a safe place," said Warren.
The American Red Cross is ready to go into Louisiana to help if needed.
"35 volunteers within this chapter that said hey I'm ready when the time comes, what do you need us, and where do you need us to be," said Warren.
Orange County has sandbags available to protect homes and business, and officials are preparing for power outages.
"We are currently working with Entergy, getting them lists of important areas and important infrastructure that needs power back first if it should go out," said Orange County Emergency Management Coordinator Joel Ardoin.
The Red Cross is still accepting volunteers to help those recover after Francine makes landfall.
Orange County Emergency Management coordinator advises you make sure you're a part of Southeast Texas alerting Network for Updates.