'People's homes have gone.' Emergency flooding appeal

New Zealand Red Cross has been responding to the severe flooding across the country and has launched an emergency appeal to further help the people hardest hit.

Gypsy Chant, an emergency management volunteer, has been responding to the floods in Whanganui.

Gypsy, along with other Red Cross volunteers started evacuating people from their homes at 5am on Saturday.

“At the first home I went in I saw the contents of a bedroom floating. It’s hard to ask people to leave their homes, but the situation was getting worse.

“It’s surreal, people’s homes have gone. The full impact of the flooding won’t hit home until people go back to their homes," she says.

Thousands of people in urban and rural areas have been affected by the June 2015 floods, which have devastated parts of Whanganui, Rangitikei, Taranaki, Hokitika and Dunedin.

Red Cross has launched an emergency appeal to help those most affected by the flooding, both in urban and rural areas, and both in the South and North Island.

100 per cent of funds raised for the June 2015 Floods Emergency Appeal will go directly towards helping those worst affected by the flooding.

“The floods are the worst disaster to affect New Zealand since the Canterbury earthquakes. Thousands of people will need help to get their lives and livelihoods back on track,” New Zealand Red Cross Secretary General Tony Paine says.

Red Cross emergency response teams have been assisting Civil Defence around the country with evacuations, relief distributions, community outreach and assistance in welfare centres.

“It’s been an eventful year for us with Cyclone Pam and the Nepal earthquake, but as always we are just as ready to respond at home as we are overseas and we know that Kiwis are also just as ready to help here too.”

Please support those who have been hardest hit.

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