During a year of headlines filled with raging wildfires, damaging hurricanes, and relentless floods, it was the Midwest Tornadoes in May of 2003 that proved to be among the largest responses from the American Red Cross this year.  Over the period of a few days, 80 tornadoes touched down in communities in 10 different states, including Pierce City and Desoto, Missouri.

2003 American Red Cross Response:
On a national level, the American Red Cross provided relief for more than 805,000 families throughout 2003, calling for 243 large-scale disaster responses by the organization to incidents across the country.  The destruction of the Southern California Wildfires, Hurricane Isabel, and the Midwest Tornadoes forced thousands of families from their homes, in some situations, with only the clothes they were wearing.

The top five American Red Cross disaster responses for 2003 are:
1. Fires – single-family, multiple-family fires, and wildfires (continually)

2. Multiple-state Tornadoes – May, 2003 (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee)

3. Southern California Wildfires – October-November, 2003

4. Hurricane Isabel – September, 2003 (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia)

5. Hurricane Claudette – July, 2003 (Texas)

This ranking was based on the number of families assisted, severity of damage to residences, aggregate totals of Red Cross disaster services provided, and the costs of providing that relief.

While the Red Cross assisted during these and dozens of other large-scale disasters, the majority of disaster relief operations were coordinated by Red Cross chapters responding locally to more than 72,000 community disasters, most of which were single-family house fires.

Locally, the St. Louis Area Chapter responds to approximately 900 local fires every year.  In fact, house fires accounted for approximately 93 percent of all Red Cross disaster responses in 2003, and that category leads the compilation of the five highest impact disasters.

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