Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania's disaster relief team returns from Kentucky floods

UPPER MERION TWP., Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- Red Cross volunteers who went to help with flood relief in Kentucky are back home and have a plea to anyone who is able to help.

Six volunteers from the organization's Southeastern Pennsylvania branch dropped everything to go help when the disaster struck. Four more offered virtual assistance.

"Your heart went out to these people crying, how much can they take?" said Heidi Dampman.

She says as she touched down in Eastern Kentucky with the Red Cross. The floods that had washed away neighborhoods kept coming.

"There was one who was a father of five. He was on his way home from the coal mines and stopped to help someone who crashed a four-wheeler, and they were both swept away," said William Dobnak, another volunteer.

The flooding in Eastern Kentucky began on July 26. Officials say the disaster has claimed 39 lives and left hundreds more without homes.

"They just explode when the water comes down off the mountains and wash all these houses away," said Fred Lehman, who worked in a Red Cross warehouse during his Kentucky deployment.

Dobnak helped victim services and Dampman helped feed people.

"I remember walking away my first few times there like how am I going to manage?" Dampman told her fellow volunteers.

"These people have nothing. If I can take time out of my job to go help people then that's what I want to do," she said.

Now back home, the volunteers say the natural disaster they saw in Kentucky can happen anywhere, which is why it's so important to them that help comes from everywhere.

"You'd want someone to be there for you if it ever happened to you," said Lehman.

"We're coming up on a year of Hurricane Ida so everyone should just be aware that these things can happen here. We're not immune," said Dobnak.

The Red Cross is continuing disaster relief in Kentucky. For those who can't travel but want to help, the organization is still collecting donations.