(CHICAGO, IL) July, 17, 2017 — The American Red Cross has been on the ground assisting the local community with flooding support in Lake County since it became an emergency situation on July 12.  The Red Cross are in regular contact with the Lake county Emergency Management Center on ways to best assist the impacted community. The Red Cross set up an emergency flood hotline for residents needing assistance.  The hotline is 847-220-7495.  We encourage anyone who has been impacted that may need assistance to call.

Since Wednesday Red Cross responders have been in the affected communities working with residents to assess needs including lodging, food and mental health support.

The Red Cross initially set up four shelter locations across the flooded areas.  Two shelter locations still remain open at this time, and anyone who has been impacted by the flood is welcome to come to the shelters for a place to stay or to get something to eat.  Disaster case workers are also available at the shelter locations to assist residents.

The two shelter locations that remain open are:

-Magee Middle School, 500 N Cedar Lake, Round Lake

-Jefferson Middle School, 600 S. Lewis, Waukegan

All weekend Red Cross volunteers were out in the community doing disaster assessments, distributing clean up kits, doing outreach to impacted residents and providing water and snacks.  Teams are spending most of the days in Round Lake and Round Lake Beach in many neighborhoods and reached hard hit areas including streets such as Greenwood and Locust, Midland and Catalpa, Meadowbrook and Lagoon.  Lake County Office of emergency management is providing direction to the Red Cross in terms of areas that have been hardest hit with severe flooding.  Outreach and clean up kit delivery continued over the weekend in Fox Lake, Grayslake and Lincolnshire.  We have several on the ground teams of volunteers combing the communities. In all, the Red Cross distributed over 1000 clean up kits so far.

There are approximately 70 Red Cross volunteers assisting in various aspects of the flooding disaster response. If someone is interested in becoming a Red Cross volunteer, please go to redcross.org/volunteer -   there is information available about volunteer needs for Lake County flooding.

The Red Cross urges people to use extreme caution as flood waters are still unsafe.

About the American Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois:

The American Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois serves 9.5 million people in 21 counties including Boone, Bureau, Carroll, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Jo Daviess, LaSalle, Lake, Lee, McHenry, Ogle, Putnam, Stephenson, Whiteside, Will and Winnebago. The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit us at redcross.org/il/chicago or visit us on Twitter @ChicagoRedCross.